


Little T'Mir

by Kotik



Series: Trip Of A Lifetime [3]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M, Family, Multi, Romance, Sexual Content, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:52:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1978407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kotik/pseuds/Kotik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The original Enterprise Crew finally outgrows their first assignment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

This is the third story in my series "Trip of a Lifetime", which I started in early 2009. Part I was the first fanfiction story I ever wrote. This series often gave birth to ideas for my other works, so you might encounter similarities to my other stories. It is also the one where I often try less common themes and concepts, so there might people out there, who don't like some of my ideas, especially when the often vast cultural differences between Europe (I come from East Germany) and other continents come into play.

This story is fit to be read by older teens, who know about the birds and bees. There is occasional ripe language, but nothing that kids don't hear on the street every day.

This story will make no sense if you haven't read the other two stories. I'm providing a short synopsis for both, but it won't make up for actually reading them.

**Part I: I Grieve With Thee**

Shortly after the death of little baby Elizabeth T'Pol and Trip are called before a joint Starfleet and Vulcan commission to be 'debriefed' about the events leading to the child's creation. A Vulcan minister with an own xenophobic agenda tries to destroy the pair in an attempt to have them removed from Starfleet and thus wants to remove their interspecies-romance from the public eye. But Trip and T'Pol fight back with the help of their crew mates on Enterprise and Ambassador Soval.

With Kov and Shran Starfleet recruits two more illustrious aliens.

**Part II: Vulcan Heat**

After Trip publicly claimed T'Pol as his mate bang smack in the middle of the High Council chambers, their bond is being witnessed by First Minister T'Pau herself, who has taken a shining to the dashing engineer and his wife. Encouraged by Trip and T'Pol's permission to explore their minds freely during the witnessing meld, the inexperienced and impulsive T'Pau delves deep into their consciousness and unexpectedly performs an unintended bonding meld that leaves Trip and T'Pol bound to her as her En'ahr'at – her adoptive parents.

Assigned to Admiral Gardner directly, Trip and T'Pol are marooned on Vulcan until transportation can be arranged. Never content with sitting on his butt Trip buys himself his dream estate on Earth with the help of his mother Cathryn, who gets to know her daughter-in-law better in the process. Trip also manages to procure a shiny new Warp 5 engine – built by the Vulcans.

An assassination attempt on T'Pau strengthens the already close relationship between Trip and his adoptive daughter. When the aftermath of the attack on T'Pau reveals a conspiracy that involves a top Starfleet official, Trip learns the hard way that trying to be Vulcan is bad for a human and T'Pol takes radical action to undo the damage he has inflicted on himself – by damaging him some more.

Finally back on Earth they settle into life as house owners and T'Pol explores the advantages of human mating customs. When Trip realizes that T'Pau is fairly overwhelmed by the task of being the big leader of Vulcan, Soval comes to the rescue again.

Trip is missing his recently adopted daughter, a feeling that is painfully mutual and all seems well when T'Pau plans to stay a few days on Earth to recover from an acute bout of exhaustion. But more trouble is brewing, when Travis Maywheather charms Roxana, the heir to the throne on Betazed. Since all Coalition leaders are invited to the resulting wedding, T'Pau gets invited, too. The peculiar tradition of Betazoids to stage weddings as a nudist event, puts T'Pau in limbo as being naked in front of others isn't normal workplace practice on Vulcan. Trip and T'Pol see no other option than volunteering as Earths representatives to provide support for T'Pau during the ordeal.

Back from the weirdest mission of their lives, T'Pau returns to being big boss on Vulcan, while Trip is busy building the _NX-03 Discovery_ – Shran's new ship. Another chance to see T'Pau presents itself a few months later when she is invited to attend a Coalition conference on Earth. Trip invites her on a climbing trip, but a second assassination attempt on T'Pau nearly succeeds. Despite being badly injured in the attack, Trip takes Shran's completed ship out on a trial run and runs into a Vulcan ship that doesn't appear to be what it looks like.

War breaks out when a Romulan invasion force attacks Vulcan. A combined fleet of Earth, Vulcan and Andorian vessels hands the entire Romulan invasion force over to their creator at a great loss of life and sets back the Romulan war effort by over a year.

While the Romulans are forced to retreat and rebuild, the Coalition decides to make the best of the break they are given. Trip starts construction of the new Coalition warship "Constitution" - the first of the eponymous class. But before that he will have to travel with his wife to Vulcan.

While T'Pol instructs young Vulcan cadets, who have been selected for service on human vessels, Trip is technically on a two week vacation, but that turns into a bus driver's holiday when he has to construct several facilities needed to survive the most dangerous mission yet. T'Pol's _plak-tow_ is about to come upon her and Trip learns the hard way, how much it can cost to be in love with a Vulcan.

Now on to Part III – Little T'Mir


	2. Emotional Turmoil

She closed the wall panel that covered the surveillance screen after having assessed the current situation. There was none. The only biosigns she had picked up were two patrolling guards in the distance. Those were supposed to be there.

She released the clasps of her robe and the heavy garment slid off her shoulders by gravity alone and pooled around her feet. Suppressing a sigh of relief, she made a step forward to leave the disagreeable piece of clothing behind. With a swift movement she removed the top of her underwear. Hesitating a moment she pushed down the bottom piece too and stepped out of it. _Father is not here, so he cannot be inconvenienced,_ she reasoned and put the discarded item on the pile.

She closed her eyes; going through some simple breathing techniques while the slightly stale, but cool air touched her skin, no longer blocked off by any clothing. In a way it was as if all the responsibilities and hardships of her position fell away with the clothing. In the privacy of her adoptive parents' home she could be T'Pau, a young Vulcan, nothing else. She walked over to the environmental controls and started the air conditioning module. After days of disuse since mother and father's departure the air in the house had become stale.

Opening the terrace door, T'Pau walked out and saw that she would have to do some work to get the dwelling up and running. The pool was closed off with a sliding cover fashioned from a dark synthetic material to avoid evaporation of too much precious water.

After keying open the covered panel next to the entrance she flicked up the main switch, keeping an eye on the small display. When the solar collectors had aligned with 40 Eridiani – as humans called Vulcan's star – the output showed 98% output – well above minimum acceptable levels. Several flicks of switches later, the cover started to retract, while the filter pumps started to hum, beginning the process of refreshing it. A small stream of water trickled out of an opening in the wall as the water synthesizer worked to replace water that had been lost to the planet's heat.

=/\=

"Here we are," Travis said with a smile when they had reached the entrance to the Royal Bungalow which served as the guest house for visiting dignitaries. It was nestled in a quiet corner of a park, which also bordered on various Embassies, among them those of Vulcan and United Earth, which were both very recent additions to the landscape.

"Thanks Travis," Trip answered with a grin. "Hell, isn't every day that you're shown the way by His Royal Highness himself."

"You didn't expect me to send a guard, did you? It's only the third time we've had the chance to see each other. "

"Why don't you go inside, darlin'? I won't be long," Trip said to a somewhat restless T'Pol. She duly obliged. T'Pol not wanting to have the last word was worrying, very worrying. They had been cooped up aboard a Vulcan courier for five days, less than a week after her _pon-farr._ It didn't take Surak to work out what made her restless. The incessant mental hum in his mind was a dead give-away.

"Thanks for inviting us, Travis," he said, while fishing the little hypospray with the Tri-Ox from his pocket and he injected the substance in his neck.

"Are you ill?" Travis asked with a worried look.

"Tri-Ox," Trip muttered a bit self-conscious. "There's been a bit of a condition for T'Pol. While we're at it…"

"Don't worry, man," the unspoken question was answered by a very amused looking host. "The building is sound and telepathy proofed. I better leave you to your 'duty'."

Trip rushed in as the buzz in his head began to become distinctly unpleasant. Coming here so shortly after her blood fever had been a monumental mistake, but one could not simply refuse a royal invitation, especially since they were still technically part of the Diplomatic Corps. Their affiliation with the department was never rescinded after their first visit to Betazed.

He was prepared for her stance – completely naked, ready to pounce as soon as he was naked, too. The order of the moment was to get undressed in the fastest possible way; else she would help him with that – at the expense of a perfectly usable uniform.

Before he could even grab his zipper he saw her eyes roll back and her unconscious body fall forward. In a desperate lunge he shot forward, his thigh muscles screaming at him for the sudden abuse.

He caught her barely in time.

=/\=

T'Pau fidgeted, something she had never done before. Concentrating on the mixture of conflicting emotions, she realized not all of them were hers. Since she was alone on the spacious estate, they couldn't come from a nearby individual, so logic dictated they were bleeding in from mother's mind, which was unusual as she should have arrived on Betazed by now.

Keeping in telepathic contact over such a vast distance was not unheard of for strong mating bonds, but a parental bond between mother and daughter – biological or adopted – was considerably less pronounced. The current circumstances however seemed to make it possible for mother's emotions to reach her. The most likely explanation was that mother's emotional and telepathic centers were still hyper-stimulated so shortly after the _plak-tow_ and she herself was one of the strongest telepaths on Vulcan. But something must have happened that removed all shielding from mother's mind, too. Even the slightest shielding would stop the contact.

At the current time that remarkable feat was most distracting, however. Her own reign over her emotions had been taxed over the last days as time for meditation had been a lacking commodity. She even had sacrificed sleep in order to work through the backlog of decisions, reports, petitions from several clans and a lot of diplomatic functions.

It was a decision that pained her, but she would have to raise her shields once her mind was calmed again, but to achieve that, meditation was the first and foremost priority. She had just finished laying out a towel on one of the deck chairs, ready to lie down for some quite meditation, even if it would lack the luxury of a human chest to rest her head on or a heartbeat to listen to. On the upside she could stay unclothed. Father had a strict policy of 'no contact without clothing'. The evening sun was still agreeably warm, so she was grateful for this small upside.

When she was positioning her personal communicator on the small table nearby she felt a spell of dizziness and positioned herself on the deck chair to eradicate the sensation. The dizziness went as fast as it had come, but her exhaustion took a toll. After mere minutes of attempted meditation her exhausted body slumped down and she drifted off into a deep sleep.

=/\=

Trip rushed into the medical ward of the Vulcan embassy. Since it had been less than a year since Vulcan and Betazed had established formal diplomatic relations – after their fateful wedding visit – everything had the distinct brand-new feel to it, but Trip currently had no eye for little details like that. His attention was strictly focused on the two Vulcans hurrying in before him, carrying T'Pol on a gurney.

An unknown Vulcan medic hovered his scanner over her and once satisfied that her vital signs were sufficiently stable he shoved the gurney into the imaging chamber, which looked suspiciously similar to the model they had in Enterprise's sickbay.

He was complemented out of sickbay into a bare-walled waiting area with all the charm and luxury of a jail cell. He started pacing the waiting area as the minutes, later hours, of waiting added up.

Have you ever been so damn angry, irritated and worried that you got a raging hard-on? He chastised himself in his mind and paced the room like a caged animal. In his panic to conceal the slightly unmistakable sign of his arousal he had hurriedly donned T'Pol's robe over his uniform before the medics arrived. That ensemble made him look ridiculous as the robe was too short to conceal that he wore a standard uniform beneath it. But he preferred the indignation of looking like he possessed the fashion sense of a baboon over walking into the Vulcan Embassy with a raging nine inch boner on display.

=/\=

Trip looked out of the only window directly into the park. They had been here now for over four hours and there was still no sign of his perma-erection going away anytime soon. He was torn between being angry at the uncooperative treacherous organ and himself for his seeming lack of self-control. On the other hand he knew that it was T'Pol's arousal he was experiencing and that meant, at the moment she was neither dead nor comatose. But what they were working on he didn't know, since nobody seemed to be willing to provide any sort of information. Frustration was added to his already tumultuous emotional condition.

His mental rant was cut short when the yet unidentified medic approached him.

"I am Doctor Lorat. Please follow me into my office. We have a lot to discus."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Trip sighed and followed him in a respectful distance. He tried to calm himself, but he felt the bubbling of a veritable rage under the surface.

=/\=

Trip was awkwardly trying to find a sitting position in which the treacherous organ did not threaten to make love to his own rib-cage. Having finally succeeded he directed his attention at the doctor.

"I suppose you are aware that your mate has recently experienced the blood fever," the Vulcan stated the obvious.

"It was sort of hard to miss, sir."

"What was easy to miss is that your mate has conceived."

"Say what?" Trip asked in disbelief.

"Your mate is in a very early stage of pregnancy. But this poses certain problems."

"Ok," Trip stalled for time to get his head around what he had just heard. "Well, let's cut to the chase. The last attempt at a Vulcan-Human Hybrid failed miserably and both T'Pol and I came close to breaking down over it. I want to know: What are the chances? What are the dangers?"

"The chances of survival for the fetus are there, but they are not overwhelmingly large. The success will depend on how successful our medical intervention will be. Currently the fetus is merely a cluster of a small number of stem cells and it will remain that way for 3 to 5 days. After that period any attempt to intervene would be futile as the cell division rate will grow exponentially."

"Can you perform that procedure?" Trip asked, seriously.

"I do not possess the required information, yet your Doctor Phlox does. We have taken the liberty to contact Starfleet concerning the whereabouts of Doctor Phlox. Apparently he still serves on your former vessel. And they are currently patrolling the Coridan system. They were ordered to change course immediately. Meanwhile the Embassy has dispatched our courier vessel on a rendezvous course. If no problems arise, Doctor Phlox can be here in thirty-eight hours."

"I can't thank you enough for your quick thinking," Trip said sincerely and fought the urge to hug the Vulcan.

"Your Admiral Gardner asked us to relay a message."

Trip took the small PADD from the Doctor. The message was short and simple:

_Tucker, what have you gotten yourself into now? Hang in there all of you, we pray for you and your wife._

_Gardner, Admiral_

"Sorry," Trip said and turned away from the Doctor until he had won the battle against the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. He could feel that his emotional situation became more precarious by the minute.

When he turned back again, the Doctor showed no sign of offense, nor did he offer any comment.

"Ok, doc. What are the dangers? What happened to T'Pol?" he asked and braced himself for the bad news.

"To put it in simple terms, your mate has been poisoned by her own immune system. The small cluster of stem cells that will become the fetus is made up of one half Human and one half Vulcan DNA. They do however combine only imperfectly, which caused her immune system to attack the stem cells as defective cells."

Trip fought hard not to succumb to the boiling mix of feelings inside him.

"However," the Vulcan continued. "We have put her in high level quarantine, which is why the foreseeable question if you may see her will receive a negative answer. We have put her in a healing trance and have shut down her immune system by medication. We are keeping her in a sterile environment until Doctor Phlox arrives."

"Anything I can do?" Trip asked, accepting the explanation with a resigned nod.

"You could try to survive. You will suffer severe side effects and I would suspect you are not sufficiently trained in shielding techniques."

"I can shield my thoughts, but I can't shut out the bond completely, like she does," he admitted. "What do you mean by severe side effects?"

"Your mate is still in the immediate phase after a _pon-farr_ , which is dominated by a strong urge to mate. It takes at least 2 weeks after the _plak-tow_ was resolved to pass this phase. In a trance your mate cannot shield her mind, so these emotions and sensations together with all other emotional impacts will spill over into your mind."

"That explains it," Trip said. "Trust me doc, that arousal you speak of has been with me for a while. Why do you think I'm wearing this ridiculous outfit?"

"I suspected."

Suddenly Trip slapped his forehead. "Dammit, doc! Do you have a subspace terminal?"

"We have, but we can only record and send audio messages. I had to ask the Betazoid authorities to contact..."

"Sorry, later doc," he said frantically. "Where is it.?"

Lorat pointed to the device.

Trip ran over and hurriedly entered one of the few communication codes he knew by heart. The device said something in Vulcan and Trip looked at the doctor, demanding a translation without so many words. He had started to learn Vulcan months ago, but it was not enough to understand a mechanical voice while being in emotional turmoil and most blood being rerouted south to sustain a permanent erection.

"Code accepted, enter security clearance."

Trip entered his private security code.

"Authorized;. Start recording," the doctor translated.

"Honey, it's dad. If you can feel your mom's mind over that distance, do me a favor and yank your shields up, the full program. And don't sleep without a telepathic jammin' device or something. Your mom hit a snag and she be radiat'n stuff you're too young for. Don't think about it, just do it! I'll call ya in the evenin' and do the explainin'. Dad out. Love ya, lil' one."

After finishing his hectic transmission that made him fall back into his southern drawl, he pressed the send button and sat back on his chair, heaving a big sigh of relief.

"Message delivered successfully," the doctor translated the machines reply, dryly.

When Trip looked back at Lorat, he was met with what he had come to know as the Vulcan equivalent of the 'WTF?' look.

"You have more offspring?" he asked

"Yeah. We are _En'ahr'at_ of a girl, well young woman really. And not only by declaration, but by bonding meld. She's definitely got a bond with T'Pol and maybe one with me, but I suppose that would be too weak to work all the way from here to Vulcan. But she's a mighty telepath and with T'Pol's shielding gone, I don't want to take any chances."

"Fascinating. May I inquire about her age?"

"Thirty three," Trip said. By Earth standard that would be quite well into her adult life, but as I understand by Vulcan standards she's barely out of adolescence."

"Indeed, that's true," the doctor confirmed. "She is sexually mature, but full emotional maturity is reached only around the age of forty years."

"Oh shit, what if she did not get the message in time?"

"Her emotional training should suffice to battle the intrusion. Over this distance, the disturbance will only be a fraction of what your wife or you go through. Unless she is behind the learning curve her meditation techniques should suffice as soon as she has raises her shields. But even if she chooses to resolve the problem by engaging in intimate relations, be assured it is neither unheard of nor illegal. Vulcans have been known to engage in intercourse as early as twenty five years of age."

"You're not helping, doc!" Trip raged, losing the battle against his bottled up confusion. He jumped up from his chair, pacing the room. "We're supposed to be her parents, not a pair of freaks, who mess up a teenager who's supposed to out-Vulcan the lot. She's already picked up enough bad habits from us. Maybe we should have taken up Torok's offer to revert the whole thing! We're certainly not good for her."

The thought of letting go of her brought tears to his eyes.

"Sit Captain." Lorat ordered with a raised voice and Trip was so surprised – he complied.

"I ask forgiveness for the intimate question. Is the child in question First Minister T'Pau?"

Trip stared at him in naked shock.

"Do not be alarmed, Captain. This falls under strictest confidentiality. It was not a difficult connection to make. The mentioning of a bonding meld, which imprints traits of both parents to the young, her sudden talent to elicit amusement and I remember that she touched you most intimately when she decorated you after the Battle of Vulcan. When you mentioned High Priest Torok's involvement, it was logical to assume we are talking about a high-ranking individual."

"Well, not much use in trying to deny it now, is there," Trip admitted.

"Indeed. But that serves well to alleviate your fears. Minister T'Pau is known to be a strong telepath and possessive of emotional control far beyond what she should have at her age. Even if your mate's influence would hit her at full force, she will be able to fight it with meditation."

"Thanks heavens for small mercies," Trip spat sarcastically, trying to appear calm, but failing. The thought that T'Pau was affected as well had worn down his last defenses.

"I am more concerned about you, Captain," the doctor said. "I do not know how humans react to prolonged arousal and unresolved urges to mate. You could be overwhelmed."

"Well, by now I feel like fucking the raw shit out of anything that couldn't run fast enough, followed by those who could," Trip swore, exhausted by the torrent of warring emotions in his mind.

"It is as bad as I had thought," Lorat said and fetched a hypospray.

"Forget it doc," Trip said and jumped up. "You're not sedating me. We humans... we have ways to deal with that."

He made a vulgar shaking motion with his right fist and stormed out of the office.

=/\=

Trip stood hunched over the toilet of their guest quarters, manhandling the treacherous organ.

"Were the fuck did you come from," he swore loudly at the pitiful drop of ejaculate that floated in the bowl. "Seriously there can't be anything in there anymore!"

That was the fourth time he had given the damn ceramic bowl a facial over the last three hours. Hell, a semi-flaccid was an achievement by now! His mind felt as if a lightning bolt was making mad electric love to a maze of wires. The bombardment of T'Pol's chaotic mix of emotions was running him ragged.

Hoping to be good for at least an hour before his fist needed to ride into battle again, he decided to make hay. A very cold shower and then the call to T'Pau were on the menu.

=/\=

T'Pau woke up to an incessant beep and an unknown torrent of emotions and sensations ravishing her mind, threatening her coherence. She felt an unknown wet sensation between her thighs, but the alarming beep forced her attention to the device emitting it and she flipped open her communicator.

After hearing father's message replayed the third time, she had decoded most of his warning and tried in vain to raise her shields. Since according to the display the message was at least 3 hours old, added to whatever time she had already been asleep when it arrived, all the while being fed conflicting emotions, she immediately knew that she was in trouble. Shielding her own transmissions towards mother was no problem yet, but the torrent of conflicting sensations reaching her was too strong to be blocked out. She knew immediately what threatened her coherence. She had experienced the condition once, but her period of arousal after the mind-meld that had made Charles Tucker III her en'ahr'at, had been only passing as she had merely seen human mating practices in his mind. Now she was affected by the real emotion.

T'Pau closed her eye replaying the mind-meld with mother, but that yielded no answer. She now replayed her meld with father and after careful deliberation she had narrowed her options to two. Father knew of two techniques with which a female could achieve relief in absence of a mate. One was a technique involving a cylindrical object, the other one was a completely manual procedure – the decision was made. It was dangerous, but there were little other options available. The two guards outside the estate were female and therefore of little help in this crisis. Would her impaired mind be alert enough to continue the necessary movements in the period of incoherence that preceded the much needed climax?

She hurriedly entered the house.

Mere minutes later a muffled shriek that nobody heard filled the house.

=/\=

"C'mon honey, take the call," Trip pleaded. He was in turmoil trying to make up reasons why her late reaction to the call was actually a good thing. Maybe she was in a council session? Or perhaps she was in their home meditating or sleeping?

Five more minutes, he thought to himself. After that, I'll probably die from worry.

=/\=

T'Pau was lying on her back desperately trying to suck in fresh air. Her body was trembling, her mind a fire plane of unknown sensations. A great relief and contentment were simmering inside her. When coherence finally came back she forced her shields shut with all strength, finally being able to close off any outside influence. Her mind went silent for the first time in many hours. She was just beginning to wonder how many Vulcans had discovered this strange activity by chance, when she realized her sense of hearing and her vision were coming back. Both had been blacked out by the sensory overload that a climax after a prolonged period of arousal caused to a Vulcan.

She could hear a muffled beeping sound and she remembered father's promise to call. When she exited the bed, her legs barely carried her and she needed a moment to steady herself. She was just about to start her way to the living room, when she remembered the 'clothing rules'. In a difficult situation like now, father would most likely not take kindly to it if she met him unclothed.

Since her vision was only still returning, she had to use her hands to find the handle on the clothes cabinet, relieved that at least her tactile sense seemed unimpaired. She squinted her eyes and as her vision grew clearer, she grabbed a T-Shirt and donned it. She left her lower body bare as she didn't want to stain a garment with whatever bodily secretion caused the wet sensation between her thighs. Since she would be sitting at the desk, Father would not be able to see that breach of the house rules in this instance.

=/\=

Sitting down on the towel she had covered the chair with she opened the connection. T'Pau registered his shocked expression as he stared at her for a moment.

"Damn! I should've known it was too late," she could hear him groan and saw him sink his face into his palms.

Now that her vision had recovered, she could clearly recognize her oversight. While father could indeed not see that she had violated the dress code, she had not realized that her erect and hardened nipples had not returned to their usual shape yet. Her bust was covered by the shirt, but it's shape was clearly emerging from beneath the cloth.

"I missed you too, father," she replied, trying to diffuse the tension.

"Have you tried meditating?" he asked worried.

She realized that he thought she was still under the influence of her mother's radiating emotions. She also knew he would definitely not like the answer, but at least his katra would not be poisoned by worrying thoughts although she was sure he would find something else to worry about.

"This is a mere after-effect father. The crisis has already been... resolved."

She flinched slightly, when she saw the look of sheer terror in his face as her words sank in.

"Alone," she emphasized. "I remembered a … technique."

"What have I done, what have I done to her," she heard him reproach himself as he sank his face in his palms again. Most likely he was blaming himself for everything again, like he so often did. That was illogical, even for his standards.

"This is not the time to speak of this. First tell me, what happened to mother?" she demanded.

"Of course, sorry," he said and she suppressed a scowl about yet another apology for an offense that was not existent. She would really need to discuss this with him at an opportune time.

"What happened?" she repeated.

"Ok, uh, she fainted and they brought her to the medical ward in the Vulcan Embassy and then they found out it is ...uh..."

T'Pau raised an impatient eyebrow.

"TheyFoundOutT'PolIsPregnantButThereAreProblems," he finished hastily without breathing once.

She observed him for a while and she saw that he was suffering from wild mood swings. So far she had seen him angry, depressed, frightened, shocked and now he was fighting back tears.

"Have you tried meditating yourself?" T'Pau asked. "You should be well capable of initiating it on your own by now."

"How the fuck should that work?" he asked and she could see him getting angry again. "I need to run to the head once an hour to jack off!"

"Father," she called out patiently. "You are currently exposed to the unchecked emotions of a Vulcan female in the after-effects of the blood-fever. This is no matter to take lightly. Seek solitude. Do not try to keep up appearances. If you feel sadness, cry without shame. If you are aroused, apply the necessary techniques. If you feel rage, destroy something, preferably something that can be replaced. If you are overwhelmed, seek to be sedated."

"So this is why I feel like going mad?" he asked and she saw tears running down his face.

"Yes, this is how it feels to be a Vulcan without full control," she said, pained by seeing her beloved _En'ahr'at_ suffer. "Do not attempt to show false manliness. It is no shame to evade the fight against these emotions. You are not equipped for it."

"I can't," he pleaded. "T'Pol might need me. Phlox will be here in two days and they need to treat T'Pol, else there's not gonna be..."

T'Pau looked away. Seeing him cry helplessly threatened to overwhelm her only recently re-established equilibrium. She made a decision.

"Father, listen to me," she decreed in full 'leader mode'. "You are no help to mother in your condition. The only thing you achieve is destroying yourself. This is not a discussion whether or not you feel uncomfortable with my clothing or lack thereof. This is a matter of survival. I will have all necessary information relayed to Human and Betazoid authorities. Go to the medical ward of the Vulcan embassy and ask to be sedated until mother has overcome the current crisis. I will inform them in advance.

She saw him hang his head in misplaced shame, but she also saw him nod.


	3. Coping Strategies

T'Pau climbed out of the pool feeling refreshed now that the messy aftermath of her first climax ever had been washed off.

Her mind was filled with worrying thoughts about her adoptive parents. While the news about pregnancy were exceedingly pleasing, it also meant they were in grave danger. The viability of the offspring was far from guaranteed. She did not believe that they would easily survive the loss of another offspring. Having recently revisited her mind-melds with them, she knew how badly they had suffered after the loss of baby Elisabeth.

As the sun had gone down and darkness set in, it started to get too cold to be without clothes and T'Pau, having toweled herself dry, donned one of the long plush bathrobes she had procured at the Earth Embassy. While emotional indulgence was frowned upon, she saw no reason to deny herself the agreeable feeling of wearing the soft garment. She flicked the switch that closed the pool's cover and went back into the house.

She knelt down to contemplate the day's events in meditation. Exhausted by the last week she had fallen asleep and nearly succumbed to mother's unchecked emotions, culminating in the need to make her first sexual experience. While that was early for a Vulcan, but not unheard of, she knew it would remain a disagreeable thought for father. She wondered if all human fathers were this inconvenienced by the knowledge that their children had started intimate activity. It was certainly a topic to investigate.

The activity itself had been exceedingly pleasing. But the phase of helplessness after the relief had come was frightening her and she decided not to repeat the experience, at least until she had time to consult with mother. Her adoptive mother was probably the only Vulcan, who could give any explanation for the torrent of conflicting sensations that one experienced when dealing with human intimate techniques. It did however explain the simplicity of Vulcan mating practices. They seemed to be designed to keep the phase of arousal to a minimum. Having now experienced what a prolonged arousal did to a Vulcan's mind, she had a better understanding for this otherwise less than satisfying arrangement.

Seeing father exposed to mother's emotions had been an unsettling experience. He was considered a hero on Vulcan for his part in the Battle against the Romulan invasion fleet. Seeing this strong man reduced to a crying figure, falling almost deliriously from one emotional state into another caused her pain and she made a mental note to check with the embassy on Betazed if he had heeded her advice to put himself out of his misery.

A decision was starting to form in her mind. The current situation was most disagreeable. She started to understand father's misgivings about her position as Head of Government. At thirty-three she was still seven years from the age at which a Vulcan was supposed to master his or her emotions and only then would the parental bond start to weaken. What if today's crisis had hit during a diplomatic function?

Once she reached forty years of age her preferred type of meditation – resting her head on father's muscular chest and listening to his heartbeat to improve the effects of meditation – would be deemed unseemly. Considering that he demanded clothing to be worn during the process made it clear that even now already, he was not entirely comfortable with it. She was sure that once she was considered a fully adult female, he would no longer allow it. She realized that it most likely originated in the fact that by human standards she had both the age and the appearance of an adult woman. Humans just could not make the strict distinction between the body and the mind that was normal for Vulcans.

There was only one way to resolve this conflict. There were only seven years left during which she could try to make up for lost experiences that were denied by her unusual upbringing. It was unacceptable to spend these years in a position she was too young for. Councilor Soval's year of domestic residence with his mate V'Lar had recently ended and she decided to lobby for his nomination as First Minister. What Vulcan needed right now was a wise and experienced leader, who knew how to cooperate with other species, not a young female, who had never been given the time to find out her own identity.

Additionally, she reasoned, father and mother would need someone to look after her sibling once he or she was born and she refused to think that this would not happen. This would solve all problems at once. She could spend the remaining years of her youth with the beloved adoptive parents and she could spend time researching the intricacies of a Vulcan-Human relationship, which would be helpful for future pairings. Having never acquired a formal education, it would give her the chance to catch up on that and maybe even become an authority in the field of interspecies relationships research.

The decision was made.

=/\=

"Allow me to express my gratitude doctor Mullaskey," Lorat said as he put the blanket over the unconscious body of Captain Charles Tucker III. "I wish he would have come earlier."

"No need to thank me," the human doctor said. "I'm just happy he came to you at all. That I would assist you was the most normal thing to do. If anything it should be me to say thank you that you consulted me instead of just treating him any way you see fit. Such consideration hasn't always been the case in the past between Vulcans and humans."

"Indeed," Lorat admitted. "To my shame I have to admit that I once was a steadfast follower of the doctrine propagated by V'Las' High Command. It took me a long time to accept the truth. The two individuals in my care were instrumental in that process and I experience a great pressure to succeed in facilitating their recovery."

"We all feel that way," Mullaskey answered. "The Tuckers aren't just any people. Phlox will soon be here. I've worked with him before. If anyone can pull off that miracle, he will."

=/\=

_Trip's office on Saturn Station_

"There has been a medical emergency on Betazed," Gardner explained and checked the assembly before him. Two humans, Commander del Rios, Tucker's second had brought his assistant Chief petty officer Maluchenko and the 'highest ranking' Vulcan Professor Solan had come in company of Sonok, a recent addition on recommendation by Tucker himself.

"Del Rios, you are head of the project until Captain Tucker is out of the woods."

"With all due respect, Sir," the Commander replied. "I would suggest handing over the leadership to Professor Solan."

"Oh?" Gardner asked, seeing the clearly chagrined expression on the Commander's face. "Can you explain why?"

"It doesn't exactly reflect well on me, but it took me a long while to accept Captain Tucker's affinity for Vulcans. Our working relationship was always professional, but I think he was working much closer with the Professor as a result of my keeping a distance."

"Well, you're at least honest, Commander," the Admiral replied with a nod. "Is it still a problem?"

"No," del Rios denied. "But we haven't developed the close working relationship yet that engineers need to get stuff done. I think Professor Solan has. He should know Captain Tucker's overall vision much better than I do."

"Do you concur, Professor?"

"I worked closely with Captain Tucker and I know what plans he has in mind and I am willing to occupy his position as long as it is necessary. If I may, I wish to ask Starfleet not to punish Commander del Rios for his admission. Difficulties to adapt to our alliance are not exclusive to humans. I can bear witness to the Commander's statement that despite his initial reservations, he has always worked professionally and correct."

Gardner saw the Vulcan offer his hand to the human and the two shook hands. He smiled. Even when comatose in a hospital on an alien planet far away Tucker somehow managed to bring people together.

"Ok," he decreed. "Professor, you take command of this operation and Commander del Rios is your right hand. Something tells me you will develop that working relationship to get this ship built."

=/\=

"Later," Phlox dismissed the not yet spoken greeting and went straight to the biobeds behind the privacy screens. Hovering his scanner over the sedated figure of Trip, he collected readings and checked them against the data on the screen.

"Tyropentaphylaminol, 20 milligrams," he ordered and after a while a bewildered looking doctor Mullaskey handed him a hypospray. Phlox injected the substance into Trips neck.

Satisfied with the values he got, he turned to talk to the other two doctors. "I offer my apology for my entrance."

"There is no offense, where none is taken," Lorat quoted Surak. "We are grateful for your presence."

"There is no time to lose," Phlox said and connected his PADD to the Vulcan computer. "I have spent the time it took me to get here to study what we can do. As you can see on this schematic, Vulcans have 46 chromosomes, like humans and most other humanoids. However chromosomes 9, 15 and 41 in Vulcans have longer DNA chains, which causes the incomplete combination of DNA in those chromosomes and subsequently the averse reaction of the immune system."

"How do you plan to correct this?" Lorat asked.

"I'm coming to that dear colleague," Phlox explained and called up a schematic from the data his alter ego on the time-traveling Enterprise of Lorian had left him. "I am not authorized to tell you were these data come from, but there already has been a successful approach to combine human and Vulcan DNA. As you can see, the DNA in the appropriate chromosomes of the male's sperm cells was mutated to contain longer chains. It was basically 'filled' with blank information."

"That would make Vulcan genes dominant in any viable case," Lorat remarked.

"Yes, a Vulcan/human hybrid is only viable with dominant Vulcan DNA. Since the mutation was caused by prior medication of the male, we cannot apply this method. I did however receive Starfleets permission to consult with Doctor Arik Soong, who devised a solution within just eight hours."

"A most remarkable individual," the Vulcan said.

"Indeed he is," Phlox agreed wistfully. "It is a shame he doesn't have the ethic to go with the genius."

"Isn't that the one, who created the Augments?" Mullaskey asked. "Do you really think you can trust this man?"

"When it comes to children, we can trust this man," Phlox said. "What he proposes is that we take the three chromosomes directly from the mother and implant them into the stem cells. This will make the mother's traits even more dominant and the child will most likely be female, but it will result in a viable fetus and more importantly, the child will be fertile, unlike naturally conceived hybrids in Earth's animal kingdom."

"A most logical proposal," Lorat conceded. "But how will you implant this modification?"

"We will infect T'Pol with a viral disease," Phlox replied dead-pan. "Vulcans are mostly immune to the H3N2 type of the human influenza virus. We will extract the necessary chromosomes from cells in T'Pol's Liquor cerebrospinalis, implant them in the virus and infect her with it. The disease will run it's cause in five to seven days and she will now doubt suffer from some symptoms. But nothing that should tax Vulcan physiology unduly. After a week we revive her immune system, which will eradicate the viral infection, but hopefully enough of the stem cells will have been mutated by then to be left alone by her immune system."

"That's quite a radical approach," Mullaskey warned.

"I agree it is somewhat... heavy handed," Phlox agreed. "But it is our own chance to make this pregnancy happen and with the history these two individuals have endured, it is most important that we succeed."

"Then we indeed have no time to lose," Lorat agreed. "The laboratory is this way."

=/\=

"Are you convinced this is the correct course of action?" Soval asked directing a glance at T'Pau as they slowly walked along the corridors of the High Council. "You have led Vulcan well through trying times for over a year. This decision to resign appears rather sudden."

"I may have led Vulcan well, Councilor, but it came at a high price. Your being here is the result of the first episode of fatigue I have experienced. Currently I'm in the second. There was an... incident two days ago during which my fatigue left me extremely vulnerable and a greater crisis could only be averted by somewhat... radical means."

Soval looked at her again, asking for details without asking for details.

"I do not wish to divulge any details," she answered his unspoken question. "Suffice to say that I came to the conclusion that someone more experienced is at the time a better leader for our people than I am. Additionally I have personal reasons for that decision. Many Vulcans of my age are still enjoying the perks of youth, before discipline and service is expected of them. I do not see the logic of denying myself that right."

"A decision most likely influenced by your father," Soval remarked dead-pan, but without any disdain.

"If it was for father, this decision would have been made after the first crisis or after the Betazed mission at the latest. Were he not incapacitated, he would probably chastise me by saying: 'It took you a sweet while, honey'."

Soval raised his eyebrow as amusement simmered in his mind. They came to a stop and Soval observed her stance carefully. She wore a garment that humans illogically referred to as a 'cat suit', even though it bore no resemblance to an Earth feline. Normally, tradition would require her to wear the richly ornamented Councilor's robe, but he suspected that the garment was, what humans called 'a fashion statement'.

Her hair had grown long over the last year – another departure from the well trodden ways of old. He had known for a while that she used the service shops in the human compound rather than Vulcan hairdressers. More than once he had noticed a subtle make-up when she was greeting visiting dignitaries. He thought back to the young girl, who had carried the _Kir'Shara_ into the High Command. She did not have the highest regard of Humans back then, barely rating them more intelligent than a _sehlat_. Now she was the adoptive daughter of a human and a regular guest in their compound.

Soval thought about her request to resign. Was it really that illogical? The child did not have any formal schooling, nor did she have any professional title. She would be unable to provide for herself were she not in the High Council. By resigning, she could correct that and with her insight into Vulcan/human relationships, she could become a valuable asset to the Academy of Science. It was only logical that T'Pol and Captain Tucker would not be the only Vulcan/human pairing forever and more knowledge was therefore imperative.

"I believe I begin to understand your logic," Soval declared. "I shall 'throw my hat in the ring' as your father would say. But I have one condition. You must allow the High Council to ensure your safety, even after you resigned. I have maybe fifty years still to live and I would not wish to spend all of them as the First Minister. You need to be prepared to return to the post in two or three decades at the latest."

"Of course, Councilor."

"Then we have a proposal to offer to the Council," he said as they reached the door to the main chamber. "Shall we?"

"Indeed."

=/\=

Admiral Gardner heard a crashing sound from the corridor and shook his head. Some fresh-faced young officer had probably bumped into someone else again. In the next moment the office door was snatched open forcefully and Ensign Ruri Katami, his personal assistant, came running in with a PADD clutched to her chest.

"Admiral," she wheezed, completely out of breath. "This just came in from Vulcan. First Minister T'Pau has resigned."

"Say what?" he asked, looking at the calendar – nope, it was already April 3rd. He took the PADD from her and the scratch marks on it told him that it was Ruri, who had just kissed the floor outside.

"Sit down, before you fall down...again," he said with a fatherly smile and the out-of-breath Ensign sat down in the comfy chair, blushing and rubbing her right knee.

He read the short note that had been relayed by the Vulcan Embassy.

"Guess, I should have seen that coming," he said, putting the PADD down. "Tucker and T'Pol are in danger and that little gal is alone with the weight of the whole planet on her shoulders. At least Soval is a known entity. He's been her main adviser, so I don't think much will change in terms of politics."

"Do you know why she resigned?" the young Ensign asked.

"I have a pretty good idea, Ruri. But it isn't really anyone's business."

=/\=

Phlox released a drop from the vial before clipping it into the hypospray injector. He checked the drop under the microscope again. Satisfied with what he saw, he let Doctor Lorat help him don the hazard suit. As the only one actually susceptible to the mutated influenza virus, Dr. Mullaskey had been banished from the premises. Phlox walked into the decon chamber to have the suit and the injector cleaned of all bacteria and viruses prior to entering T'Pol's chamber.

He passed the decon lock and entered the clean room in which the unconscious body of T'Pol was resting on a biobed.

"We have been a bit impatient, T'Pol, hm?" he asked in a whisper and with a teary smile. He injected the hypospray that contained the genetically modified influenza virus. "I'll do everything I can to make it work this time. I promise you."

Having administered the dose, he checked the readings on the monitor. Her vital signs were mostly stable.

Looking at her unresponsive face one last time Phlox left through the decon lock.

=/\=

The suit was off her shoulders as soon as the door had closed behind her. A short look at the monitor told her, that except the two guards at the foot of the hill, as could be expected, there were no other individuals in the vicinity. T'Pau strode quickly towards the terrace door and opened the 'fun panel' as father used to call it. A few switches flicked and everything was running again. The pool cover opened. She quickly discarded her underwear and dove into the cold water, suppressing the urge to whoop and cheer. Splashing around in the water, she enjoyed the knowledge of not having to return to the High Council the next day.

Once her need to cool off had been satisfied, she exited the pool and toweled herself dry. Walking into her parents' bedroom she fetched a pair of yoga pants and put them on. She walked to the terminal and logged into the Earth Embassy network. Despite her resignation from the High Council, Soval – now First Minister – had let her retain some of her security clearances. One of them was the permission to access official communication between embassies and with a great sense of relief, she read a report from the embassy on Betazed that Doctor Phlox had arrived and had treated her adoptive mother.

She closed her eyes and applied a few breathing techniques to calm herself. Her biggest wish was to board a vessel and rush towards Betazed. But that would achieve nothing. She would just be there with nothing to do and no means to help them. It was better to stay on Vulcan and start planning the change in her life. Of most importance was the acquisition of formal education.

Since her parents would return to Earth once their stay on Betazed was over, she looked at opportunities to join the schooling program at the Vulcan embassy at Sausalito. She started typing a written request to join a specialized program that would hopefully not require her to attend the full twenty years schooling period that Vulcan children had to go through. After all, in most mental and spiritual disciplines she would most likely surpass her teachers, but not much science had been taught in the Forge. Finishing her request, she sent it to the Vulcan Embassy on Earth with a copy directed to Soval's account.

=/\=

The first thing she noticed was the searing head ache and the feeling of lying in the burning light of Vulcan's sun, but when she opened her eyes, she noticed that she was on a biobed in a decon chamber. The light brown color of the walls suggested that it was a Vulcan design. Humans usually colored their medical facilities in various shades of white or green.

Looking around she found the button to summon a doctor, but she didn't need to do so as the airlock type door opened and a seemingly familiar portly figure waddled into the chamber, wearing an isolation suit. T'Pol squinted her eyes.

"Doctor Phlox?" she asked. Her voice sounded weak.

"The very same," he answered and flashed her an impossibly wide smile through the window of his protective hood.

T'Pol gasped when the doctor carefully removed her blanket and she realized that she had been divested of all her clothing. Even more distressingly, her whole body was covered in sweat – an alarming signal for a Vulcan – and dozens of sensors had been fixed to her abdomen, her arms, breasts and even her temples. An infusion fed a clear liquid into her body.

"What is wrong with me?" she asked as fear welled up in her. The lack of response from Trip's mind fueled her fear even more.

"Two days ago Doctor Lorat had to administer an immuno-suppressant as your immune system did not agree with a recent addition to your anatomy," Phlox explained entirely too cheerful for T'Pol's taste.

"What... addition?" T'Pol asked. Surely the doctor could not be this amused by finding a tumor growing inside her.

"A little cluster of stem cells that with a little fortune will grow into a Human-Vulcan hybrid over the next 11 months."

"I am pregnant?" she asked, hear voice breaking at hearing the unexpected news.

"Technically not yet," Phlox explained and she saw him sit down next to the biobed. "The cell cluster is not yet big enough to attach itself to the uterus. We first have to make sure that your immune system stops attacking the stem cells."

"Then Paxton was right," she said unable to hide her frustration. "Humans and Vulcans cannot interbreed."

"Nonsense," Phlox dismissed her sentiment. "Of course they can. You are the living proof. But humans and Vulcans need medical help to make a pregnancy viable. They evolved on two different worlds after all."

"Is this why I suffer these symptoms?"

"No," Phlox explained. "You are suffering from the symptoms of a human influenza. We infected you with a mutated influenza virus in the hope that it will do the necessary modifications to your future offspring's stem cells to make them palatable to your immune system. It is a frankly severe method, but it is necessary as normally the needed genetic interference would have to be introduced to the male's sperm cells before conception."

"Speaking of the male," T'Pol groaned, accepting the cold rag Phlox put on her forehead. "What happened to Trip? I cannot sense his mind."

"He turned himself in yesterday to be sedated. Apparently your adoptive daughter urged him to do so after she could sense the turmoil as far away as Vulcan. He was exposed to your unchecked emotions when your shielding failed and as you know, humans are not equipped to deal with emotions of such intensity."

"I don't even want to think about it," she said in a breaking voice.

"Is there a problem?" Phlox asked innocently jumping back when T'Pol looked at him furiously. The cooling rag flew off her forehead as she glared at him.

"Doctor, it has been much less than a month since my blood fever. I do not feel many emotions other than overwhelming arousal and an almost insuppressible urge to go to him and take what I crave." She kicked away the blanket and pointed at her very erect nipples. "Does that give you an idea?"

"He would probably say 'No points for guessing that your emotional control is somewhat brittle at the moment'," Phlox analyzed sarcastically and put the blanket back over her.

"Trip is excitable at the best of times," she ranted as tears threatened to make a break for freedom. "He would never be able to suppress an arousal as overpowering as mine at the moment. What if my emotions drove him to seek release with another female? I would forgive him, but he would not forgive himself for the rest of his life? He abhors infidelity. What if my unchecked emotions drove him to..."

"Calm down, T'Pol!" Phlox ordered forcefully, stunning her into silence.

"He managed to withstand it for a surprisingly long time. According to T'Pau using autonomous methods. I'm sure you are familiar with them. At least I hope so, because those are the only relief you have at your disposal yourself for the next two weeks."

T'Pol stared at him. "You wish me to masturbate?" she asked in disbelief.

"You can try to manage your arousal by meditation, but I would suggest you do not tax your emotional control any more than necessary. The sooner you are able to shield your mind and have a more robust control, the sooner we can rouse Captain Tucker out of his sedation."

"If you would please give me the necessary privacy then," she demanded in embarrassed frustration.

"Of course," the doctor replied seriously. "Call me if you need anything."

As soon as the airlock door had closed, she reached down with her right hand and applied the necessary techniques to find much needed relief.

=/\=

After the Battle of Vulcan they had fully disclosed their relationship to Starfleet. There had been no point in denying it anyway after she had embraced her adoptive father in front of a huge audience after pinning the Vulcan Order of Merit to his uniform. As a result she was now a dual citizen as of three weeks ago and officially listed as the daughter of Charles Anthony Tucker III and T'Pol of Vulcan.

She sighed as she closed the latest communication from Phlox. Only her recently acquired official status of adoptive offspring allowed Phlox to divulge details about their status to her. Mother was suffering symptoms of the artificially induced infection, but she was stable and father was still sedated but in no danger. It was not an ideal situation, but considering what her beloved parents had gone through in the past it was almost minor in comparison and the potential outcome was more than an agreeable motivation to endure the hardships of the current situation.

She shut down the communications console and donned the well-worn overall she had been issued by her hosts. Now that she no longer was the First Minister, she no longer had access to the luxury of being transported to Earth on a Vulcan cruiser or an ambassadorial courier vessel. Instead she had booked a fairly inexpensive passage aboard the human cargo vessel Horizon that was on a last supply mission before a major service at the shipyards of the United Earth Cargo Authority. Now that Earth was at war with the _Rihanssu_ UECA had decided to improve the weapons of as many cargo ships as possible.

They were delivering engineering supplies for father's construction project from Vulcan to Earth and with interest she had learned that the Captain of the ship was the brother of one of father's former ship mates, a man she had gotten to know as Prince Travis I of Betazed, when she had attended his wedding ceremony.

Father would probably say 'Space is a small place', she thought as she zipped up her overall and left toward the cargo bay.

=/\=

"Seriously Miss T'Pau, you are a passenger on this flight," the dark skinned captain said as she walked into the cargo bay. "You've been hauling boxes for twelve hours last night. I had thought humoring you once would have cured you of your helpfulness."

"On the contrary, Mr. Mayweather," she replied. "It convinced me that I had made the right decision. Have you ever been isolated from most people, being forced to make important decisions."

"Been there," the human said. "I was forced to take command when my dad died unexpectedly."

"How did you solve the problem?"

"I reconnected with my crew. Once I gave up my seclusion things started to work out."

T'Pol could see that the human got the idea as he started smiling.

"Cargo section C5?" she asked, pointing at a large cargo container. The human nodded. Without much effort she hoisted it up. Her bigger strength and the lowered gravity on the Earth ship made it a relatively easy task.

"By the way, Mr. Mayweather," she said turning back after a few steps. Her fathers voice resounded in her mind. "I have 'been there', too. But in my case it was no ship, but a whole damn planet."

She turned around and walked away to deliver the container to its intended location.


	4. Exchange Of Experiences

Jonathan Archer felt quite proud of himself. For the first time since Malcolm Reed had taken the post of first officer, he didn't look and move as if he was on trial during the Captain's dinner. The idea to invite Hoshi as well had been spot-on. Unfortunately the news he had to relay, were not exactly what one would call happy ones if his guess was wrong. But he doubted it would be.

For the moment, however, he amused himself by observing his two officers. He could not remember ever having seen Malcolm Reed smile more than once or twice, but now with the young comms officer sitting next to him, he was almost talkative and upbeat as if he had received a complete personality transplant.

“How long did you plan to wait until you told me?” Jon asked casually and he hid a grin when he saw his two officers sit up like two teenagers who had been caught making out in the backyard.

“I'm not quite sure I know what you mean, sir.”

“Nice try, Commander,” the captain replied wit a smug grin. “It's a nice and romantic touch to wear an engagement ring after duty. But it leaves a mark on your finger.”

He was amused about the exasperated eye-roll of the Brit, who mentally probably called himself nasty names right now over missing a detail like that, while Hoshi could barely hold in a laugh.

“I take it there will be disciplinary consequences, sir?”

“Not necessarily,” Jon said having slightly improper fun seeing his first officer struggle to keep calm.

“If you talk about a break-up, sir... I'm afraid we're not prepared to do that.”

Suddenly the insecurity in Malcolm's voice had been replaced by solid determination and the usually reserved Brit took the hand of the ship's communications officer in an outward show of affection. Jon was surprised by the gentleness of the man, who was otherwise only known for running a very tight ship and having a love for blowing up things.

“I suppose you only read the part about new weapons, when new Starfleet bulletins come in, Commander,” Jon needled him. “The non-fraternization rules have been relaxed four months ago. Personal relationships are allowed as long as they are brought to the attention of the commanding officer in a timely manner.”

He could almost see the gears working in the commanders head, thinking about a comeback to that. But Jon decided that he had ribbed his introverted first officer long enough.

“Now, theoretically you would be charged with failing to do so, if it weren't for the fact that I found a properly filed report that I had 'inexplicably' overlooked at the time.”

“Rest assured, sir. Nobody will learn of your... 'tardiness',” the Brit replied dryly and Jon laughed. It was the first time that Malcolm had returned a zinger in kind.

“However, one thing that Starfleet could not bring themselves to abolish, is the restriction that committed couples cannot serve on the same ship. You will have to look for a posting in the sol system or planet-side if you don't want to be separated.”

“Considering that Starfleet has nagged me about returning for a planet-side posting to work on the UT, I shouldn't have much of a problem with that,” Hoshi beamed. “And a good security officer shouldn't have a problem finding work either.”

“Hoshi!” he heard Malcolm warn her under his breath. The Brit obviously felt that her enthusiasm was not entirely appropriate – most likely because he was self-conscious about leaving the Captain behind as the only remaining member of the original bridge crew. He stopped the impending lecture by raising his hand.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Commander, but I won't be spending much longer here either. As soon as Trip has finished building his new ship, she'll be mine. I guess we have all outgrown our first deep-space posting.”

“I wonder how they're doing. T'Pol hasn't written in quite some time.” Hoshi wondered.

“She has written to me. Came in this morning,” Jon admitted. “I guess you will have a letter by now, too.”

“Speaking of the devil,” he heard Malcolm quip when a beep sounded in his pocket.

Amused Jon observed how his two officers swapped their PADDs as each had apparently grabbed the one of the other in the morning. With a smile he dismissed them as Hoshi was obviously eager to read the long awaited communication from her friend.

=/\=

“This will help with the headache,” Phlox explained and injected the medication into her neck. T'Pol felt a cold sensation when Phlox put a scanner on her lower abdomen.

“Very nice,” she heard him say. “At least 20 percent of the stem cells seem to have been mutated. Another twenty to thirty percent and I think we have enough of them for a viable fetus to develop. If current progress keeps up, we can stop suppressing your immune system in three days”

“I am gratified to hear this.”

“Have you had any success with meditation?” Phlox asked.

“I manage short periods, before I have to stop for...”

“No explanation needed T'Pol. I know the 'procedure' does not feel very dignified, but it is a necessary evil as your husband would say. He was in the same predicament before he heeded T'Pau's advice to get himself sedated. And if it makes you feel better, I can guarantee that it is perfectly normal to 'help yourself' in absence of a partner, even among your people.”

He saw her raised eyebrow.

“It is not very common, but not unheard of,” he amended his explanation while gathering his equipment.

When he saw T'Pol grow restless and her nipples began to strain against the light blanket, he discreetly took his leave.

=/\=

Malcolm had returned to his office along the way, but Hoshi barged into her quarters, which now housed both of them. She peeled off her uniform and lay down on the bunk in her underwear, impatiently opening the recently received transmission.

_Dear Hoshi,_

_Please forgive me for the prolonged silence. The last weeks have been most taxing. During our visit to Vulcan it was found that I was approaching the acute phase of the blood-fever. The fact that I am writing this letter makes it obvious that I have survived the madness and to use one of Jonathan's phrases – it is not an experience I care to repeat. Fortuitously, as a female, I won't have to._

_Unless he is still as ignorant about what happens among his crew as he once was, which I doubt, Jonathan should by now have realized that you and Malcolm have entered a relationship. If so, the day will come that you and Malcolm will have to decide on a posting that allows you to serve together. I have the hope that you have not done so yet as I have a proposal for you. I would very much wish that Malcolm takes the post of security officer on Saturn Station and I would very much wish for the availability of a skilled linguist, who can supervise the language development of a rather unique infant and perhaps occasionally 'baby sit'. It is not a decision you have to make now as – no further medical problems assumed – this task will only become necessary ten to eleven months from now. (left eyebrow raised to 60% latitude)_

“Oh my god,” Hoshi squealed and re-read the last paragraph at least three times. A tear of emotion ran down her face as she read on.

_I deliberately left the 'tricky bits' out of it, as I first wanted to give you the chance to enjoy the news. Of course – as Trip would gladly testify – we did not 'do things the easy way'. I fell into a coma and Trip had to be sedated, too as he was exposed to my unchecked emotions, which was patently impractical so shortly after my blood-fever._

_My husband is unfortunately still sedated as my emotional control is far from re-established. My almost permanent arousal would overcome him with no chance to 'do anything about it' as I am currently confined to a quarantine station. I was purposely infected with a mutagenic virus that hopefully allows for a viable fetus to develop. The next three days will be decisive. So if your traditions have any rituals that lend divine or otherwise spiritual support I would be most grateful for any help. After losing Lorian and Elizabeth, I am no longer prepared to rely exclusively on logic and science._

_I will soon follow up with more communication,_

_T'Pol_

Tears of emotion streamed down her face as Hoshi realized the dimension of what T'Pol had written. Her Vulcan friend was so desperate for this pregnancy to work out that she was prepared to take comfort from religious rituals, which for a Vulcan was a huge step against everything they had been taught all their lives. Since neither she nor Malcolm were religious, the good old tradition of lighting a candle for people in need was all she could offer and she took two of the meditation candles that T'Pol had given her as a going-away gift a long time ago and she added a third, smaller one, for the yet unborn infant.

A thought hit her – Trip's parents were religious. She quickly wiped her face clean and opened a connection to the central civilian grid on Earth.

=/\=

She walked down the path towards the house called 'Bayside Manor'. Nobody would take much notice of a young female in ragged working clothes. The human freighter captain had left the garment to her and it served the purpose of being somewhat inconspicuous excellently. Vulcans in working clothes had become, if not a familiar, but at least a less exotic view on Earth since many former _V'tosh Ka'tur_ had sought employment among humans and were popular choices for professions that required physical strength and endurance.

When she reached the entry gate, she encountered two Vulcans guarding it. Apparently Minister Soval's insistence on providing safety was not an empty promise. She knew the officers of course. She had ordered them to Earth herself two years ago.

“Major Setak, it is agreeable to see you again.”

“Minister.”

“I am no longer a Minister as you well know,” T'Pau replied. “I no longer hold a title, so my name will suffice as an address.”

She accepted and returned his acknowledging nod.

“I hope this assignment is not too repetitive?”

“Not at all,” the Major replied. “I find my work here quite agreeable. My mate has a chronic back injury, so the relatively modest duty hours allow me to care for her and the reduced gravity of the planet enables her a greater level of comfort than our home world. We are discussing permanent settlement on this planet.”

“Most agreeable,” T'Pau acknowledged. “Have there been any incidents since my parents left?”

“None of significance. The estate was approached by a group of human children, who were curious to see where the Captain and Commander live. Apparently they have gained a certain popularity with the youth of the planet. They did however leave without further arguing when asked to do so. Their curiosity was obviously sated and one of the children expressed her elation at knowing that the Tuckers are 'safe from the baddies'. Apparently some sort of reference to our presence.”

T'Pau nodded and entered the estate.

=/\=

Hoshi had just shooed the Captain and Malcolm out of their quarters, eager to write the return letter to T'Pol. The lighting of candles had of course raised an alarm, but thankfully she was on good terms with the ship's first officer. A very emotional captain had also arrived and upon learning the reasons, he was only too happy to grant her a permission for open fire in her quarters.

Only after the captain had left she realized that she was still in her underwear. Neither the Captain nor Trip's parents had mentioned it, at least not directly, so she shrugged the faux-pas off as she did with her undershirt, now that there weren't any male eyes in attendance anymore - although Malcolm's would have been quite welcome to the sight.

_Hi T'Pol,_

_You would probably have raised a disapproving eyebrow about my completely unseemly way of celebrating the news. I always knew you would one day make it, but I didn't quite expect it so soon. If I could, I would just pack up my stuff and rush to Betazed to be with you guys and do anything I can to help, but we still have to serve here for a while._

_As for the 'divine support', we had to leave that to Trip's parents as both Malcolm and I are atheists. But I have three candles lit for both of you and the little one. In my exuberance I forgot I was still in my underwear when the Captain and Malcolm showed up. It was really funny seeing the Captain trying not to be too obvious. Malcolm, well he **was** obvious and I can't shake the feeling that I'm due for a round belly very, very soon as well.  He knows I want a house full of kids, but when he heard of the good news, I could almost see it in his eyes that he's ready to start production._

_ This 'mutagenic virus' routine sounds pretty dangerous to me and I would have worried if it wasn't Phlox, who oversees your treatment.  I hope the two of you are soon better and Trip can 'do anything' about your 'almost perpetual arousal'. I'll have to make this letter a short one as I'm only on an extended lunch break, but don't worry, the candles will be left burning and Trip's parents are by now already in church. We are all thinking of you and wishing you the best. _

_Hoshi._

_PS: The offer about Saturn station sounds like a good one. I'll have to discuss that with Mal._

=/\=

When T'Pau came out of her parent's house she saw a Vulcan with a long lunge line observing one of her parents' animals running in circles. The other – a white one – was untethered and came trotting her way as if to inspect the new arrival. She had had little interaction with the animals on her previous visits, but she knew that they seemed to be rather friendly creatures, who preferred a light stroking of their flanks.

She let the curious creature sniff her and gently ran her hand over the soft neck of the animal. As soon as she had touched it, she felt the contentment simmering in the simple mind of the creature. She continued to run her hand over the fur of the animal, which snorted contently.

“Beryoza seems to have recognized you,” the Vulcan explained. “She has very keen senses.”

“I have never touched the creature before,” T'Pau reasoned and regarded the Vulcan, whom mother had once introduced as Segal, with a nod of acknowledgment.

“She senses the connection of your mind with that of your adoptive mother. You instinctively used the same pattern of movement when you petted the horse. They are both missing your parents and will be most content to be in touch with a familiar mind.”

“Do you think they would let me ride them?”

“Are you referring to your parents or the horses?”

“I have no doubts about my parents' permission. I was wondering if the animals would be agreeable to the idea.”

“They would most certainly be agreeable,” the Vulcan assured her. “In fact I would suggest that both of them are quite fond of the walks your parents use to take them on. Your mother's gear should fit you sufficiently well. I offer to teach you the necessary techniques.”

“Tell me where I can find this protective gear,” T'Pau replied without further ado.

=/\=

T'Pol sat up slightly, as far as the myriad of sensors all over her still unclothed body allowed. Finally, over the last five days, the after-effects of her blood-fever had subsided to a point that she would only have to use the undignified masturbation routine once a day. According to Phlox her heightened urge for physical intimacy would subside further, although he had warned her that the necessary hormone treatments to care for the human half of a possible fetus would still have an increasing effect on her libido, especially in the latter stages of pregnancy.

She had considered discussing the option of alternative sexual techniques with Phlox, but had instead opted for the database in the Earth Embassy and exchanging a few more letters with Hoshi. Thankfully the humans had an almost endless arsenal of techniques and some, in connection with the Vulcan physiology proved promising. Hopefully Trip would be open to experimentation as the 'traditional method' would soon become impractical. The substantial size of her _Adun's_ 'equipment' could threaten damage to the womb or more precisely its resident.

Her silent contemplation was interrupted by the arrival of Phlox. His optimistic estimate of three days had not proven true, but now after another five days, it was time to decide if the procedure had been a success or not. If it had not worked out until now, it would not work at all anymore. She held on to her control as best as she could, but the waiting and the uncertainty proved more and more taxing.

“This should revitalize your immune system in a matter of hours,” Phlox said and T'Pol took his cheerful mood for a good sign.

“What about the baby, Phlox?” she asked and didn't even try to hide the impatient undertone of her voice. The doctor had seen her on the brink of losing emotional control several times over the last two weeks anyway. The medic's face was split by an impossibly wide smile.

“Well, it looks as if the little lump of cells was even more impatient than you, T'Pol. It has already taken residence in your uterus and you are now officially the first Vulcan pregnant with a half-human baby. Congratulations.”

The onslaught of joy and relief hit her mind unprepared and T'Pol's body was rocked by heavy sobs and tears started to flow without the slightest chance to hold them back. It was only an episode of thirty-seven seconds until she could regain a modicum of composure, but she nonetheless felt self-conscious about it.

“Do not worry, your secret stays in here,” the Denobulan answered as if reading her thoughts.

“I am grateful, doctor,” she said, her voice still breaking after the short but substantial emotional episode.

“We will wait another twenty-four hours before we awake your husband,” Phlox noted. “Since we doubt we can separate the two of you once he is awake, we must make sure that your recovered immune system has eradicated the remaining viruses.”

She nodded her acknowledgement.

=/\=

Hoshi read the opening sentence over and over again, but it didn't change.

_Dear Hoshi,_

_I am now without doubt pregnant. Phlox has confirmed that the procedure was successful._

With a loud squeal she grabbed Malcolm and kissed him senseless. That both of them were at the captain's table at the time was a detail that she chose to ignore. When she broke the kiss, she looked at a flabbergasted Malcolm for a while before regarding the captain with a beaming and not at all apologetic smile.

“I take it T'Pol sent some good news?”

She answered the captain's question with a nod, before climbing off Malcolm's lap.

“I'll be off. The rest of the letter is not for your eyes,” she proclaimed and sauntered out of the captain's mess.

=/\=

The captain let out a laugh when the door had closed behind Hoshi.

“Malcolm, how do you run the ship when your girlfriend doesn't even get the basics right, like asking to be dismissed for instance.”

“It's a nightmare, Captain,” Malcolm answered and Jon grinned at the man's not very convincing 'exasperation'. “Ever since the news came in from T'Pol she's been giddy like a schoolgirl.”

“You known what that means, don't you?”

“Trust me sir, I do,” Malcolm replied dryly. “And I consider myself quite a willing participant.”

Jon laughed, stood up and fetched a bottle of Bourbon and two glasses.

=/\=

Hoshi closed the door and lay down on the bunk to read the letter in the quiet of her quarters.

_Dear Hoshi,_

_I am now without doubt pregnant. Phlox has confirmed that the procedure was successful. It will still be another twenty-four hours until Trip is taken out of sedation. As he will not be in a condition to engage in any 'strenuous' activity I will be forced to 'help myself' for an additional day, but I truly hope that it will be the last time for a preferably very long time. While not entirely disagreeable as far as successful relief is concerned, I have come to the conclusion that it is a pale imitation of what my husband can do to sate my desires._

_Although I have become comfortable with sharing very intimate details with you, I ask you to understand that I do not wish to discuss my 'planned surprises' yet. Your advice on human intimacy is always welcome and has helped a great deal in becoming a more suitable wife for my Adun, but I believe it would not be prudent if you knew the ideas before him. Should some of my ideas prove successful, I might share the details with you afterward in case you want to try them yourself. (left eyebrow, raised, 30% latitude)_

Hoshi laughed out loud. She hadn't really expected that T'Pol would go as far as telling her what 'alternative strategies' she had thought about, but from the way T'Pol was writing she could tell that Trip was in for one heck of a surprise – or a lot of them by the sound of it.

_For obvious reasons I did not have the opportunity to discuss the offer for you to join the station crew of Saturn Station with Trip yet, but I would not have extended the offer if I wasn't convinced that he would have made the exact same offer. He misses Malcolm as with T'Pau, myself and the horses, our household is entirely dominated by females. T'Pau has developed a taste for beer, but you know my beloved he would never allow her to consume more than one bottle, so he misses the 'piss-ups' with Malcolm. I believe that to be a reference to their occasional deliberate inebriation when we were still on the ship._

_I was surprised to learn that T'Pau has resigned from her post of First Minister and has now taken residence in our estate. I'm afraid you will have to compete with her for the privilege of baby sitting once our child is born. She seems most eager to fill the role of a 'doting sibling'. I wonder where she picks up phrases like these._

Hoshi fell off the bunk laughing. T'Pol could sometimes make a stand-up comedian look pale with her dry humor. One of her favorite 'jokes' had become to take the mickey out of herself for her past problems to decipher human phrases. And she was on a roll in this letter.

_After the events of the last few weeks, I now look forward to return to a normal life, as much as you can call it 'normal' when being pregnant with a unique hybrid child. Have your attempts at procreation met with any success yet? While I would think that your reasoning that our child would have a play companion while growing up if we are pregnant at the same time is a mere excuse for your wish to get started on the number of offspring you wish for, I cannot deny a certain logic behind the thought. So I shall await positive news in the near future._

_Awaiting your reply, patiently of course_

_T'Pol._

Hoshi put the PADD aside, still giggling, and stood up to prepare for the shower.

=/\=

_the next day..._

Phlox entered the hospital room in the Earth Embassy with T'Pol in tow. After confirming that her reactivated immune system had successfully dealt with the influenza infection she had been released from hospital two hours ago and was now eagerly awaiting the waking-up of her mate.

“Is there anything I have to pay attention to, doctor?”

“Well after such a prolonged sedation he will be quite 'punch-drunk' – shall we say – for a few hours and while he might display signs of arousal, you should not expect him to be in any shape to 'perform' until he had a good night's sleep to give his body the time to recover.”

The doctor could see the momentary flash of disappointment on her face and felt obliged to amend his information.

“If you feel an urge to provide relief by alternative means, however, feel free to do so. I believe human males are quite fond of oral gratifica...”

“I am quite aware of the details, doctor,” she interrupted and forestalled any graphic explanations while Phlox injected the drug that would get him out of the prolonged sedation.

=/\=

T'Pol adjusted her medical face mask. Although the scan had not shown any signs of remaining influenza viruses in her body, Phlox had advised her to wear the mask for at least one or two hours after Trip had woken up until his own immune system was back to normal operation just to err on the side of caution.

She was gently stroking his hair, when his eyes opened sleepily.

“Hi there beautiful angel with no mouth,” he babbled sleepily.

The momentary confusion about his rather incoherent address prevented her from offering a reply.

“Y'know, you look just like my T'Pol,” he prattled. “But she has a mouth. Big beautiful lips...”

She looked at doctor Phlox for help but the Denobulan merely shrugged with an apologetic smile.

“It will take a few minutes for him to become... more coherent.”

Having said that – infuriatingly – the Denobulan fled.

=/\=

With the help of a young embassy nurse she guided her mate along the corridor. He had regained coherent thought, but was rather weak and unsteady on his feet. Predictably, once his mind had cleared up, his first question had been about the baby and despite his visible exhaustion he had managed a few whoops and cheers when she had given him the good news.

Since she did not want to haul him all the way through the park to the yet unused guest house the Betazoids had provided, the Earth Embassy had assigned them a guest room for the night that was just a few meters down the corridor from sickbay.

After the young nurse had left them alone she started to undress him, while the bathtub filled up. She did not want to risk taking him into the shower as he was too unsteady on his feet. Once she had peeled him out of the hospital dress and undressed herself as well, she helped him into the half-filled bathtub, where he submerged with a hum of pleasure. Only his head and the tip of his erect member where peeking out of the water when she left him to wash himself while she took a shower.

=/\=

“Isn't it my task to care for my beautiful wife?” he asked sleepily and she could hear the hint of self-reproach in his voice. She continued twirling her tongue around his sensitive nipples making him hum with contentment.

“The doctor has cleared me for providing relief, but asked to refrain from any strenuous activity. You will have ample time to prove your skills tomorrow, beloved.”

Ever the obstinate human, he directed her to stand on her hands and knees over him. She remembered a position called 'sixty-nine' from the database and reasoned that it was indeed no more strenuous for him than just lying on his back. It was good that she had not conferred with Doctor Phlox about alternative sexual techniques. His information seemed to be incomplete.

That was the last thought in that particular line of logic as any other contemplations were drowned out by the pleasure and desire engulfing her mind when her beloved gently kneaded her buttocks while hungrily driving the tip of his tongue into the folds of her vagina. With equal greed she engulfed his erect tool with her mouth.

Basking in the pleasure provided by his skillful tongue, she bobbed her head up and down on his shaft, taking in as much of him as she could without gagging. Remembering some of Hoshi's 'secret' techniques that the young human had eagerly shared in one of her letters she ran the tip of her tongue agonizingly slowly along the underside of his throbbing meat and twirled it around the head, groaning in lust and desire.

She noticed how her vision went and once the world had gone dark, she knew that she was close to climax. She upped the tempo, bobbing her head up and down his length with fervor as she did not want to leave him 'unfinished'.

The worry proved unwarranted as mere moments later she felt how his hips bucked and he emptied himself into her throat. She had barely enough time to gulp everything down and clean up the head of his rod with her tongue before her own body was rocked by a massive orgasm. Barely holding on to coherent thought she rolled off to her side to avoid collapsing on top of him before she cried out the ecstasy of the long awaited climax.

=/\=

Coherent thought returned much earlier than her vision did. Technically, she reasoned, they had perfectly followed the doctors orders as the mutual application of oral gratification had allowed him to stay flat on his back with almost no additional strain on his weakened body.

It was certainly a technique that warranted frequent repetition, but she looked forward to the next day, when her mate would hopefully be back to full strength and able to perform the more advanced postures she had in mind.

When her roaming hands had found the blanket, she pulled it up to cover their naked bodies. She gently ran her fingertips over the contour of his face and felt that his eyes were closed already in deep slumber.

T'Pol rested her head on his chest, patiently waiting for her sight to return. The temporary loss of vision was an unfortunate side-effect of her physiology, but for all intents and purposes, she hoped that she would spend a sizable portion of the next night 'blind as a bat'.

  
  



	5. Return To Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not much action in this chapter. It’s more of a ‘day in the life of…’ episode looking at what some of the protagonists are up to.

## Return To Duty

 

Trip woke up feeling disorientated, but that was probably to be expected when one had spent over a week in sedation. Not that he would prefer to know much about these few days. According to T’Pol her unchecked emotions would just have tormented him some more. And in a roundabout way it was awfully convenient to skip the worrying phase and just wake up to the good news.

Of course, the devoted husband in him felt guilty about having left T’Pol to suffer through the uncertainty on her own, but, since everyone from Lorat to T’Pau didn’t stop repeating over and over again that there was nothing he could have done, he had to settle for accepting that fact. Now it was time to return to duty, both for his day job and between the sheets. Phlox had given him an exact schedule for two daily Tri-Ox injections to rebuild some strength as he was not only still recovering from the massive exhaustion of having squelched T’Pol’s blood-fever during the _pon-farr,_ the prolonged sedation had not helped his recovery either.

Today would certainly be busy. There were subspace conferences with Gardner, Malcolm and Saturn Station and of course reviewing of all the backlogged material in the Engineering detachment at the Embassy. And it wasn’t so hard to guess that T’Pol would require some extended attention in the night. Not only had she announced as much; the fact that she had already gotten out of bed, but not seen fit to wear anything so far, was a hard-to-miss indication.

=/\=

Carrying a basket with all sorts of utensils and tools, needed to bring the banya back into service after the prolonged absence of her adoptive parents, T’Pau made a stop at the stable. Vivendi and Beryoza were already back in their stalls but neither animal offered any protest as it was already late in the afternoon and both had spent a long day on the lawn and even been on an excursion to the beach.

Learning to ride had proven surprisingly easy, helped by the superior Vulcan sense of balance and coordination, so she had started to take the horses out on long walks towards the beach. She would usually ride Vivendi, as Segal had called her ‘a life insurance’ on cross-country rides, while Beryoza would trot alongside.

Now she checked that both of them had enough hay and snacks for the night and treated both of them to their favorite snack – a banana. Beryoza’s stuck her head out sniffing T’Pau’s chest noticing the absence of the shirt that she usually liked to tug with her lips. Seeing that she couldn’t tease her caretaker tonight the mare retracted her head back inside and continued to munch on some carrots. After verifying the contentment of both creatures by running her hand along their necks to get a touch-telepathic insight into their minds, T’Pau turned to preparing her transport.

The young Vulcan fastened the basket to the back of the hover vehicle and started the engine. Hearing the long absent sound, the horsed snorted, slightly startled, but soon stuck their heads back into their feeders. Leaving the stable slowly, T’Pau opened the throttle when she was out on the lawn and sped towards the beach.

=/\=

“Good Morning, Captain. It’s good to see you conscious for a change,” Gardner needled his conversation partner.

“Thanks Admiral. I admit it has certain advantages.”

“So, what’s the News? Did it work out?”

“Everything worked out, Admiral. I’ve heard I have to thank you for allowing Phlox to contact Arik Soong. We can’t really thank you enough for that and it’s good to know that he’s done something useful for a change.”

Gardner shook his head. “There’s no need to thank me. It was the least we could do. I remember that you once bailed out the whole Diplomatic Corps. If we started repaying what you and your wife have done for us, we’d be doing you favors for the rest of our lives.”

Gardner could see that the man was thinking about something.

“Actually, sir, there is one favor I’d like to ask of you.”

“Let’s hear it.” Gardner said with a nod.

“You’ve probably gotten the report about Malcolm Reed and Hoshi Sato already.”

“The latest couple from Archer’s love-boat, yes. I take it you want them for Saturn Station?”

“Exactly; Hoshi’s of more use working on the UT rather than a front-line ship and I need a good security chief. I have one, but with all respect, his experience is a bit on the short side and with T’Pol going on maternity leave, I need a new XO. Del Rios is a great engineer, but Malcolm’s a natural with all the bureaucratic malarkey.”

Gardner nodded his acceptance.

“T’Pol wants to go on maternity leave for the whole pregnancy?”

“Yes,” the engineer confirmed. “Nobody has the slightest experience with hybrid gestation except for the data we brought back from Lorian’s ship. We want her home with Phlox nearby, in fact, T’Pol has already plans for giving the entire east wing to Phlox.”

Gardner raised an eyebrow.

“East wing?  You make it sound like you’ve bought a castle.”

“Well, Admiral. The thing’s called ‘Bayside Manor’ for a reason. Twenty-five rooms. The entire second floor is completely unused, even with us, T’Pau and Phlox’s lab already in it.”

“I didn’t know Starfleet pays _that_ good,” Gardner said with a chuckle.

“Remember the two books on twin-nacelle designs I published a year before _Enterprise’s_ launch? I’m still getting regular payments on those. Three months ago I got two-hundred thousand in royalties from Andoria alone. And they’re only just starting to sell them on allied worlds. And don’t think T’Pol will be sitting at home twiddling her thumbs during pregnancy. She’s collected a whole host of data on her micro-singularity research and the Vulcan Science Academy has been nagging her for two years to publish.”

“I can see you are well catered for,” Gardner replied in honest amazement. “Hearing that, we should feel lucky that you still deem us worthy of your time.”

He saw Trip shake his head.

“Admiral, Starfleet is our real home, even if none of us is very keen on going out into battle anymore. We still love to be in space and we won’t leave Starfleet. In fact our greatest dream is to get back one day to what we did in the early days of our mission. Go out there, eyes wide in wonder.”

“You’re not alone, Captain,” Gardner agreed. “By the way, have you made any progress on the reports from Saturn Station? I would guess there’s a huge backlog by now.”

“Professor Solan knows exactly what I need. He has written weekly summaries of all reports and I’m pretty well in the loop. Now it’s just a matter of getting me and T’Pol back home.”

“Since Reed and Sato return, too, we’ve dispatched _Enterprise_ to Betazed. They’ll pick you up in three days.”

“Sounds good, sir. What about the assignment for Malcolm and Hoshi?”

“Tell them to request the two assignments and I’ll grant them.”

“Thank you, sir.”

=/\=

The room was filled with crackling sounds as the wood burned in the oven and started to heat up the water. She scooped up a bucket full of water and started to clean the walls, benches and windows, which were by now covered with a thin layer of dust. It was not something she had done often in her life, but somehow T’Pau found house chores quite a gratifying work. Unlike the complex job of diplomatic functions, where one haggled for hours, just to agree on the shape of the negotiation table, after half an hour of cleaning one actually saw a result. And one could clean a banya without a shirt, something which at a diplomatic function would not necessarily be met with universal approval.

Opening the little refrigerator in the changing room she found a few bottles of father’s favorite beverage. Checking the expiry date she saw that it was still perfectly consumable and opened one of them. The taste was even tarter than the beer they had shared on Vulcan. She sat down on one of the benches to take a break from her cleaning and instead read the latest transmission from the embassy with her schooling schedule.

=/\=

Trip had just arrived at the embassy, entering his temporary office in the engineering detachment. There was really everything one could wish for – terminals, a holographic meeting table and a generously sized desk. It had been prepared for a stay of several weeks, but the circumstances had thrown a wrench in all the best laid out plans and now he would get to use it for barely two days.

Deciding to make the best of it, he fired up the terminal and entered Malcolm’s code. It took a while until the connection was established, which meant that Malcolm had most likely been on the bridge and as to prove his speculation true, when Malcolm’s face finally showed up, he was sitting in Captain Archer’s ready room.

“Hey Malcolm, long time no see.”

“Hi Trip; I’ve already heard the good news. Congratulations, mate.”

“Still 10 months and a bit to go. That leaves you about one month to get Hoshi knocked up. I can’t help the feeling that our two ladies are hell-bent on getting one out at least roughly at the same time.”

“It’s not for lack of trying, mate.”

Trip laughed. “I don’t think that’s supposed to be a complaint.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” the Englishman replied dryly.

“Have you thought about joining the team at the Station?”

“We’d like to, but we don’t know what Starfleet decides and it’ll take some time to find a place to live. Neither of us is very keen on living with any of our families. My father hates my guts and her family isn’t best pleased either, because Hoshi chose a bloody _Gaijin_.”

“You’d think we have nineteen-fifty,” Trip snorted sarcastically. “As for your problems; Gardner already pre-approved your transfer. All you have to do is send a written request for transfer to Saturn Station. I want you as chief of security and Hoshi as protocol and communications officer. He’ll approve both.”

“I guess we can find some quarters on the station until we have found something on the planet.”

“Might not be necessary, Mal. Do you think you could squeeze yourself and Hoshi into a six room flat?”

Trip laughed about Malcolm’s flabbergasted look. It took the Brit a moment to recover.

“What do you have in mind? Six rooms sound a little expensive.”

“The entire second story of our home is empty,” Trip explained. “And it would have the added benefit for Hoshi that Phlox is nearby at all times. He’s going to run a little lab in the east wing, doing research on Human-Vulcan reproduction. Just in case Hoshi’s dream of a truck load o’ kids is contagious.”   

“That sounds like a mighty generous offer, but will T’Pol be comfortable with so many people around her?”

“She told me to offer it. She’s changed a bit over the last eighteen months. She’s by far not as reclusive as she used to be. In fact I wonder if _you_ would be comfortable with living here.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Well, let’s say the women tend to be ‘unreserved’ in this household, so if you freak out at the thought of occasionally running into T’Pol or T’Pau without a shirt on…”

To Trip’s surprise Malcolm started to laugh, which in itself was a rare enough sight.

“Oh Hoshi will feel right at home,” Malcolm said in between laughs. “Since I moved in with her I learned how rarely she wears more than underwear in our quarters – if even that.”

“I doubt you’re complaining much,” Trip said with a grin.

“Coming home to find my gorgeous SO on the bed half naked – yeah – scarred me for life,” Malcolm declared theatrically and both of them laughed.

“Anyway, Mal, we can talk about the details when you guys are here to pick us up, but you best get the transfer request out as soon as possible.”

“Will do, mate. Thanks for the offer - both of them actually.”

Trip waved him a greeting before Malcolm severed the connection.

=/\=

T’Pol wondered why Phlox could never manage to suppress his unnaturally wide smile. It was not to be expected that he did not know, why she had stopped over at his office to ask for a clyster syringe and to ask about any precautions needed for its use. But was it always necessary to emphasize that fact with his typical anatomically near impossible face contortion?

Apart from the medical device she also needed some suggestive attire. She could have just waited for her husband in the nude, which would be more than enough to inspire him to engage in sexual relations, but through the bond she knew that he was much more receptive to suggestive clothing that emphasized the parts of her physique he enjoyed the most.

Since the Betazoids seemed to have a penchant for at times outrageously revealing clothing, she had decided to visit one of the native trading facilities. With her own teaching schedule cancelled due to the changed circumstances, she would have all day to thoroughly prepare the seduction of her husband. She entered a small establishment that exhibited several dresses in its shop-window that not even Hoshi would dare to wear in public.

=/\=

Sipping from the beer bottle she scrolled through the schooling plan that an embassy commission had worked out for her. Most of the subjects she would work on in private study and mother would most likely be able to help with some of the advanced challenges.

The fact that doctor Phlox would be on the premises opened an interesting opportunity for the mandatory internship. Usually Vulcan youths chose to work in one of the many spiritual retreats and she had considered to do so herself – in the newly rebuilt monastery at P’Jem. Others chose to take up a support assignment in government offices or – those gravitating toward an engineering profession – would take a job on one of the orbital shipyards.

T’Pau, however had decided that getting herself educated to be a nurse under the tutelage of the Denobulan would be a more logical assignment as knowledge of basic medicine was always a useful skill and it opened the chance that her sibling could be born here in the house if she could learn the skills to assist Phlox during the birth.

A spontaneous idea came to her mind. Father was still on Betazed and she began calculating the time on the planet. Quickly she had calculated the orbital period of the planet and come to the result that it should be half past eleven – almost lunchtime – in the capitol of Betazed.

She entered his communications code and after a short period of ‘communications port already in use’ messages, the connection started to initialize. She quickly grabbed a towel and held it up to cover her chest in case father would not be alone. She was also insecure how he would react to her state of undress.

“Hi honey.”

“It is agreeable to see you, father,” she replied. Her adoptive parent’s face broke into a long-suffering grin.

“It’s ok, hon; I’m alone in here, so before you get a cramp in the arm…”

Sheepishly she let the towel fall into her lap.

“You are not offended?” she asked.

“No I’m not. And besides, I better get used to it. We’ll soon have a third nudist in the house. The Reeds are going to move in upstairs and, according to Malcolm, Hoshi has a lot of shirts, but only because the wardrobe would look empty otherwise.”

“Have you recovered?” she asked in reference to his long sedation.

“I’m okay. I was three sheets to the wind when they woke me up, but I’m better now. Speaking of it. You might wanna be careful with plundering my beer stash. This is not the limp-wristed stuff we tried on Vulcan. That’s Czech brew and it packs quite a punch.”

“I will keep that in mind,” she answered and rolled her eyes. “I was merely taking a break. The banya was in considerable need of cleaning.”

She saw his amusement.

“You could have just called the cleaners. You are not supposed to be our house-maid, you know?”

“I have the time and it would be illogical to waste money on having someone else do it.”

“Suit yourself, hon, but for the upstairs flat you call the cleaners okay? That’s a bit too much work for one and you should concentrate on your schooling.”

She nodded her acknowledgement.

“Shall I prepare something else for your return?”

“It’s still a week, so there’ll be time. Just enjoy the few quiet days, because it’ll become a bit more hectic when we arrive. Oh, and I hope you have refilled my beer stash by then.”

She raised an amused eyebrow at his implicit permission to consume the rest of his stash as long as she made sure there wasn’t a shortage upon his return. Equally implicit, but firm, was of course his restriction in terms of how much she was allowed to peruse and she didn’t plan to upset him by getting herself into trouble.

=/\=

Malcolm came home to Hoshi’s quarters after a long shift. The talk with Trip had elated him as many of the problems he had thought about over the last few days were more or less solved. The thing he had mulled over the most was how to find assignments that wouldn’t separate them by half the Sol system and the double assignment to Saturn station would elegantly solve that particular problem.

Moving into the Tucker mansion was of course a very elegant solution. Captain Archer had been there once and had waxed lyrical about the beauty of the estate afterward. He couldn’t believe that the idea had actually come from T’Pol. For Hoshi,  it was the best solution of them all as she would be happy to have T’Pol around for company, but he didn’t quite know how he would get on with living on the same estate, especially if he had to expect to run into Vulcans wearing ‘Hoshi’s parade dress’ – a pair of pants and nothing else.

The hiss of the closing door shook him out of his thoughts as he was met with a spectacular sight. Hoshi had made the most of the special permission she had gotten from captain Archer as the whole room was exclusively lit by candle light. In the middle of the room was a mat with a very low small table on it. Hoshi was kneeling behind it, her delicate rear resting on her heels. Her hands were clasped in front of her body and hidden in the wide silken sleeves of her beautiful kimono.

Malcolm smiled. She was spectacularly gorgeous and she smiled at him in a fashion that made his heart melt. It was clear that she had a very important message to impart and considering that they had spent the last ten days rutting like rabbits whenever there was a minute to spare, the selection of possible surprises was limited.

“I suppose the security officer has hit the target?” he asked softly while mirroring the Japanese style seating across from her. Surprising himself after seeing her smiling nod, he felt a tear of emotion running down his cheek. He closed his eyes as Hoshi reached over and gently wiped it away.

He opened the eyes and watched Hoshi prepare the tea ceremony. In an elaborate sequence of movements she prepared a bowl of tea, stirring it with a miniature bamboo broom. He took the small wooden bowl with the tea in it and started rotating it in his hands, mirroring her movements. When she started to drink, he did so himself and maintained firm eye contact with her. Their glances held each other and he could almost feel the sparks flying between them.

After they had finished their tea, Hoshi stood up and with a swift tug at the belt of her Kimono, the garment slid off her shoulders revealing her naked body.

“Take me to bed, Malcom,” she whispered and the mesmerized Brit gently scooped her up in his arms.

=/\=

Jonathan sat in his quarters sipping a drink and watching a water polo game, but it wouldn’t quite take off. A little more than two days journey to Betazed and the subsequent week’s journey back to Earth would be all the time he had left aboard the ship. For all intents and purposes he should be happy about the fact that he would be the first skipper of the new Constitution class, which, if the first CGIs were anything to go by, would make _Enterprise_ look like a hapless runabout.

But it simply wasn’t the same as his ship, where one had to duck to avoid bashing his head into a support beam while crossing the ready room. Sighing he signaled Porthos that it was time to take a walk and the eager dog bounded back and forth before the door, tail wagging.

Jon and his trusty companion stepped out into the corridor that he had walked along so often, but soon would no longer be able to.

=/\=

Trip stepped out of the shower in the Embassy. One couldn’t say they had saved money on the wrong end when the Government had built the diplomatic representation of their home world. Styled like an old Chinese pagoda, the building was sheer luxury inside. What was billed as an office was actually a small apartment, with the main office, a bathroom with shower and a small bedroom, although he would have no use for that.

What he had use for were the fresh underwear and uniforms in the bedroom’s wardrobe. They were missing the name tag, but otherwise they had the correct rank insignia and command color. It certainly had its advantages to be technically still a part of the Diplomatic Corps – one was pampered all day. Once he had donned the new uniform, he returned to the bathroom and made sure his hair sat properly and splashed his freshly shaven face with the hideously expensive aftershave he used only on special occasions and today certainly was one such occasion as T’Pol had left no doubt that she was expecting to celebrate his ‘return to duty’ in the bed and sleeping was not on the menu.

With T’Pol one never knew what to expect. She could be waiting for him stark naked and green-flushed, ravishing him on the spot. Or she would prepare a copious candle-light dinner making the evening an unforgettable experience – before ravishing him on the spot. That’s why he had showered here before going home to their guest quarters – in case T’Pol chose option one.

=/\=

T’Pau squinted her eyes. Father had not exaggerated when he had warned her about the potency of the beverage. Unfortunately he had forgotten to warn her that one easily lost count as was evidenced by the seven empty bottles on the floor. And he had also not mentioned that the heat in the banya would enhance the inebriating effect.

Collecting her remaining senses she made sure that the oven was secured and opened a window to make sure the steam could dissipate. Staggering out into the anteroom she tried to pick up her pair of pants, but failed as her disrupted sense of balance threatened her to fall over every time she bent down. Making a dismissive hand gesture, she staggered out stark naked and careened towards the forest on her way back to the house. The hover vehicle would have to wait for pick-up tomorrow.

=/\=

He entered the spacious guest house and knew immediately that ‘option two’ was on the menu. Several candles were lit and soft opera music was playing in the background. He carefully removed his shoes and looked out for his wife.

Coming into the living room he could see that she had really gone all out. A large candleholder with at least eight candles was standing among a table full of everything one could wish for – both as a Vulcan and a Human. There was an eclectic mix of different fruit and vegetable salads, but also meat balls, barbecue sauce, grilled potatoes and mushrooms, small chops of pork and beef. The whole arrangement bordered on decadence.

He gasped when T’Pol sauntered into the room. She had given up her Vulcan mop long time ago, and today she was wearing her long hair in an exquisitely styled bun that had probably made the local hairdresser filthy rich. To his utter surprise she had even put on a modest make-up. But that were mere details in comparison to her dress!

Clearly more of local origin than either Earth or Vulcan design, the tight-fitting garment highlighted each and every of her gracious curves. It was brightly colored with unknown but definitely beautiful flower motifs. He wiped his lips in case he had started to dribble.

She was a picture straight out of heaven and as if that wasn’t enough – most of the top half of the garment was semi-transparent. Her supple breasts and the dark nipples were almost clearly visible through the sheer white fabric and to top it off there was another transparent shape on the back, showing the contours of her well-shaped rear-end, giving away the fact that she was wearing absolutely nothing underneath the spectacular dress.

When he had returned to his senses he wordlessly gathered her in a hug and kissed her hungrily – a gesture that was very eagerly returned.

=/\=

Malcolm was breathing hard lifting Hoshi’s head up on his chest with each breath he took. Having sex with Hoshi was never a dull activity, but today she had worn him out properly. While the last two weeks, on Hoshi’s urging, had been more of a milking operation – an endless sequence of quickies with the sole purpose of shooting his seed into her, she had taken the time to properly enjoy her better half’s talents tonight, now that the desired result had been achieved. And boy would he pay for it in the morning.

Hoshi sure was a flexible creature and some of the postures she had sampled should be anatomically illegal. Malcolm wasn’t sure that all of the muscles he currently felt pain in were even supposed to exist.

“So, what do you think, luv? Will we accept Trip’s offer and move into their palace?”

“What a question Malcolm. A house with a beach and a sauna, horses, Phlox nearby to monitor the pregnancy and nobody bothers if I’m not wearing a shirt? How often can you win the lottery?”

Malcolm chuckled. In all fairness, the most important thing for him was getting Hoshi off a front-line ship. They had both survived the Battle for Vulcan and he wasn’t eager to tempt fate a second time. He would have happily moved into a tent in the Highlands if that meant Hoshi was safe.

But now he was going to get that wish plus a home in which Hoshi would feel good and have her best friend T’Pol nearby. And Hoshi feeling good was always good news in the nights.

=/\=

Trip absentmindedly chewed on a piece of pork and recoiled, when he stuck the fork with the mushrooms in his face, missing the intended orifice by about an inch. He put the offensive piece of cutlery down and rubbed his nose to check if there was any bleeding. When he was convinced that there was none he looked up and saw T’Pol grinning. It wasn’t a hallucination – she wore an honest-to-god shit-eating grin. His eyes went wide.

“My emotional control is not yet back to full efficiency,” she explained unapologetically as she wiped the grin off her face. “Have you injured yourself, husband?”

“No, just pried myself away from the glorious view for a moment and that was what it took to achieve it.”

“I can change into something more opaque if it inconveniences you.”

“T-that won’t be necessary, gorgeous wife o’ mine. I’d… rather shove the fork up my nose a couple times more.”

“Why don’t you finish your beer and we retire to a more… comfortable setting, handsome husband of mine?”

Trip knocked down the rest of his drink and had to stifle a hefty burp. Eagerly he followed her into the bedroom.

=/\=

“You’re really making me work for it today,” he said with a chuckle as he opened the plethora of buttons on the back of her dress.

“Imagine what it took to close them,” she whispered and rubbed her cheek on his as he pushed the garment off her shoulders. As the dress pooled around her feet, she turned around and opened the zip on his uniform. In no time she had pushed it off and pulled the undershirt over his head. With a swift tug the underpants went down and the not-so-little engineer sprang to full attention.

“As you have been fascinated with several ‘delicious parts’ of my physique, I think you should be given the chance to appreciate them more thoroughly,” she explained in a husky voice and Trip watched dumbfounded as she put his rod between her breasts, pushed them together and started sliding her chest up and down his length.

“I’ve been starin’ at your ass whenever you weren’t sitting, darlin,” he admitted. In reply she tilted her head towards a little table on which he saw a tub of Vaseline.

“Oh my god,” he gasped.

“I hope you will enjoy my derriere as we cannot perform our normal routines during the pregnancy. The Vulcan uterus is too close to the surface, so to speak.”

While giving her clinical explanation, she continued stimulating him between her breasts, licking the head of his tool whenever the nine-inch pole poked through her cleavage.

“Don’t worry about me darlin’,” he said, gently playing with her hair. “But what about you? Not tooting my own horn, but I’m not exactly small. It will hurt.”

“Maybe at first,” she agreed, not stopping her vigorous boob-job. “But there are a number of sensitive nerve-endings in the Vulcan perineum. Theoretically it should be a most stimulating experience for me and I’m trying to find out if my theory is correct.”

“Being married to a scientist is the greatest thing in the world,” he sighed, closing his eyes as she continued her excellent workout of the little engineer.

“I’m close, darlin’,” he grunted and felt her soft mouth around his erection. With a few bobs along the length of his meat she brought him to the boiling point and with a pleasured grunt he emptied himself into her throat.

“I think it’s time to care for you, wife of mine,” he whispered and scooped her up in his arms. Gently laying her down on the bed he started to suckle her nipples, which didn’t need much stimulation to stand at full attention. As a Vulcan she could feel his arousal and pleasure through the touch telepathic connection, although swallowing his member was probably not common workplace practice for the initiation of such contact on her home world.

He knew that she was getting close when her hand started to roam his body frantically. Loss of vision meant that she was very close to climax and that after only a dozen or so circles of his tongue tip around the very sensitive flesh of her areolas. He quickly diverted his attention further south and snaked his tongue inside her drenched opening. Finding the pleasure knob, he gave it a few gentle flicks with his tongue and she went ballistic.

Giving her some time to come down from her climax, he started to coat the recovered little engineer with the lubricant she had procured. When he started to apply it to her rear entrance, she got up on her hands and knees, sticking her rear out eagerly.

“Ready to try darlin’?”

Her answer was a frantic nod and he positioned the tip of his pole at her puckered entrance. Gently shoving forward he forced open her sphincter and T’Pol started groaning in pain.

“Want me to stop?”

“No, husband, continue,” she demanded through clenched teeth and when he was halfway in, he stopped to give her time to get used to the intrusion. Instead of resting on her hands, she had felt around until she had found the scaffolding on the top-end of the bed, gripping the metal bars to hold her body up.

“Venture further husband. The sensation is becoming most stimulating.”

He gently started thrusting in and out venturing further into her bowels with every stroke and after several thrusts he was completely buried in her rear-end and T’Pol had gone off her rocker. He could barely keep up with her groaned demands for harder thrusts. Reaching around he snaked a finger inside her front entrance and gently started to massage her pleasure spot.

Except for the _pon-farr_ , when T’Pol was reduced to her baser instincts he had never seen her in such a frenzy. She was squealing, moaning and begging for harder treatment. By now he had picked up so much speed that he was barely able to breathe as much as his muscles screamed for oxygen. As he was frantically pounding her delicate behind, their bodies emitted naughty slapping sounds as his flesh impacted with hers, shortly after echoed by another slap when her wildly swinging breasts crashed into her torso.

=/\=

Trip was hovering on the brink of unconsciousness from the exhaustion. Since T’Pol’s boob-job had taken the edge off, he seemed to last forever. T’Pol had gone through three more orgasms and they were now coming just a minute or two apart. She barely came down from one when the next one hit. Finally he felt the heat bubbling up in himself and with a relieved grunt he shot his payload into her bowels, accompanied by another shriek as T’Pol hit yet another climax.

Completely and utterly exhausted he slipped out of her rear-end and collapsed onto the bed. Gathering the wheezing Vulcan up in his arms, he struggled for air and soon both of them passed out into a deep dreamless sleep.


	6. Moving In

T'Pol rubbed the palms of her hands over her face in an attempt to suppress the uneasiness. She still had not completely recovered from the embarrassment of her visit to Phlox. Granted, a visit to Phlox was rarely a comfortable experience to begin with, but having to visit him to be checked out for damage, because an attempt at receptive anal intercourse had completely careered out of control was a new low-point in her medical history.

From the intimate point of view the encounter had been everything but a low-point. She was seriously lost for words why she had to learn about the idea of using one's anus as a receptacle for the male's phallus from the human database. Considering that even her mate's most agreeably diverse repertoire of ideas and methods to pleasure her had never elicited such a raw lust and pleasure in her before, not to mention the almost perpetual state of sexual climax, one would have thought that Vulcans would have learned of the technique over the millennia. But perhaps the ferocity of the encounter was why Vulcans did not routinely practice it?

Thankfully Phlox had found the reason for why the encounter had escalated as badly as it did. More precisely he had urged her to use her still active civilian clearance for access to the Vulcan database to investigate advanced methods of neuropressure, because his working theory was that the Vulcan perineum and might hold neural nodes connected with emotional control and sexual sensitivity.

The results had been most informative. The pelvic floor of a Vulcan female did indeed contain two neural nodes, which regulated emotional inhibition. T'Pol fought down an unseemly snort about the fact that, however, these nodes were supposed to be stimulated from the  _outside_ . Only her species could miss something as obvious as just trying what happened if one stuck a phallus in an orifice that nature had not necessarily designated for the purpose. Humans would do and had done that. Humans tried everything - just for the sake of trying. That's why humans had found out and Vulcans had not. And it were her people, who had missed something fascinating, but then, her people had missed pretty much everything in terms of mating practices that went beyond the purpose of procreation. 

Unfortunately the encounter had not been without drawbacks. While the resulting contentment of heretofore unknown intensity still buzzed in her mind like an insect trapped in a glass container, it had taken an toll on her mate, who considered it his first and foremost priority to pleasure her and not – in his words – to 'rip her bowels to shreds'. He had left their guest house in the morning with his mind clouded by bitter self-reproach. It would take a substantial amount of encouragement to free him of his misplaced guilt. All her assurances that his rough treatment of her derrière had merely been the result of her wish for exactly that leaking into his mind through their bond, were left unheard.

Due to the expectable ferocity of repeat performances of the technique, Phlox had urged her not to engage in it more often than once a week, as her sphincter muscles and rectum were strained during the almost violent act, which posed a problem. The alternative - an endless repetition of oral and mammal stimulation - would soon become unsatisfactory for her mate and his intimate size prevented vaginal penetration without risking damage to the fetus. The hormone treatment would leave her need for intimacy at a heightened level, however, and she was not prepared to demand of her beloved that he pleasured her without appropriate return of the favor.

Another research in the human database was in order and perhaps Lieutenant Sato could contribute ideas once she and Commander Reed would move into Bayside Manor.

/=\

T’Pau stumbled into the kitchen of her adoptive parent’s house, feeling disorientated. Her head was pounding and she couldn’t quite assemble all necessary pieces of memory to recall the events of the evening before.

“Was your luggage lost on the way to Earth, dear?” a clearly amused human voice asked and realizing that she was still unclothed, T’Pau crossed one arm over her bust and hid her pubic area with the other. She looked over and saw an elderly woman sitting on the table preparing a salad. She had seen her only once, but immediately recognized the human as Father’s mother.

Seeing that it was a close clan member and a female one at that, her shock about her state of undress vanished and she let her arms fall to her side. She grabbed the bath robe that her guest had deposited over the backrest of a chair and put it on.

“I apologize for my state of undress,” she said self-consciously and felt the familiar heat of a blush on her cheeks. Father often amused himself by making her blush so the sensation was all too familiar.

“You should apologize to the poor horses,” her adoptive fore-mother explained, clearly amused rather than upset. “I found you last night in the stable, stark naked and completely drunk. You were berating the brown one and demanded that she stops 'making such a long face' at you.”

T’Pau averted her eyes as the heat in her cheeks became even more widespread.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Trip anything. But why did you drink so hard?”

“There was no reason other than my foolishness,” T’Pau admitted. “Father had warned me about the potency of the beverage and normally does not let me consume any more than one or two bottles. Without his supervision I forgot that the full effect comes with a delay. By the time I remembered it, I had already consumed too much of it.”

To her surprise her fore-mother laughed softly. “Like father, like daughter – adopted or not.”

“You mean father had a similar experience?”

“Oh you bet,” the human said and laughed. “He was sixteen at the time and went out with friends. Needless to say he forgot about the ‘don’t drink’ part of our lecture. When he wasn’t back by midnight we went out looking for him. We found him in the garden, completely wasted out of his skull, lying next to the back stairs and talking to ants.”

T’Pau raised a fascinated eyebrow.

“I’ll be your buddy, lil’ ant dudes. Man, dude, wish I was an ant, too.”

T’Pau watched her unexpected guest imitate her own son and could hardly contain her amusement. Obviously there was a tendency in this clan to attempt communication with animals when inebriated.

“But he learned his lesson,” her fore-mother explained. “He came home buzzed once in a while, but he never got wasted again like that.”

“I do not intend to repeat the experience either,” T’Pau agreed, rubbing her temples in discomfort.

=/\=

_5 days later_

“So, you're waiting on Tucker?” Admiral Gardner asked, not liking any delays in building the ship. Their time of 'puppy protection' would soon be over as the Romulans regrouped. The crushing defeat they had suffered after their attempt to invade Vulcan had taught them the lesson and next time they would be coming back with a much larger fleet.

On top of that V'Lon, the idiot who had given away their plans prematurely twice, was now dead and while that meant the enemy did not have a high-level operative in the Vulcan government anymore, it was also to be expected that their next move would not be as ineptly prepared. Everyone had become sort of lulled into a sense of relative security, but they were still officially at war.

“The delay will be minimal,” professor Solan answered. “While we would prefer to let the engine tests wait until Captain Tucker has arrived, we can meanwhile continue construction in other areas. We have taken the liberty to contact Commander Reed, who provided help with the problems we encountered with the targeting software.”

“It's a good thing then that he's coming to the station, too,” the Admiral said. What he left unsaid was his uneasiness to have four of Starfleets most experienced officers on a shipyard rather than a ship at the front lines, but there was little he could do. The Starfleet regulations left him little space to maneuver.

At least there was a loophole he could exploit. The regulations did only prohibit married or engaged folk on regular ships. There was nothing in the books about experimental prototypes, so there was nothing to stop him from putting Tucker, T'Pol, Reed and Sato on the Constitution prototype and let the test flight go to – well wherever the next battle would be.

=/\=

Trip walked along the corridor towards the captain's mess. It had a sense of finality to it as in less than forty-eight hours the last members of the original bridge-crew would be leaving for the last time. Not counting that he and T'Pol were only guests, there were only Anna Hess and the Captain left to begin with.

Anna was slated to become the chief engineer of the new Constitution class prototype and Starfleet had decided to involve her in the final phase of construction in preparation. The captain would also go there, but only after the final tests, so until then, with a promotion to Commodore as consolation, they would bore the hell out of him by confining him to a desk in Starfleet HQ.

He pushed the button and the door opened readily without any buzzer sound beforehand. Jon was sitting in a comfy chair, two bottles of beer ready for consumption. With a grin Trip sat down and raised the bottle in Jon's direction.

“Weird, isn't it?” Jon asked and Trip knew it was a rhetorical question. “Just seven years and now we are all gone. I'll miss the old girl.”

“I've been missing her for over a year now,” Trip agreed wistfully. “But hell, we've outgrown her. Just drop by from time to time and except for Travis and Anna there seems to be a rather peculiar concentration of former _Enterprise_ officers in our house.” 

“I'll take you up on that,” the captain said and Trip smirked as the older man licked the 'foam beard' off his upper lip. “I'm pretty sure they're going to bore the daylights out of me in HQ.”

“Paycheck will make up for it,” Trip mentioned dryly. He heard the captain snort sarcastically. 

“No paycheck in the world will make up for being out here.”

“Wish I still had your enthusiasm,” Trip sighed, shaking his head. “I'll test drive your ship and that's that. I have a loving wife, a daughter – adopted or not – who's the light of our life and the second one is incoming. I'm not gonna risk that anymore for folks, who's idea of a hand shake is a torpedo salvo on full spread.”

“Any plans for the future?”

“Supposing the Romulans don't kick our ass? I'm thinking about going into the private sector. T'Pol wants to stay in Starfleet, but prefers a teacher's job. We had thought about maybe buying a ship privately and just go out explorin', but with the kids that's not really possible.”

“Kids? Sounds like you're planning more than one.”

“Hoshi certainly does,” Trip said with a chuckle. “We're just waiting how that first own one works out. T'Pol's pregnancy has only just begun and there's still T'Pau. She keeps us on our toes more than enough for a couple more years.”

“She's hardly a little kid, Trip. She's a grown woman by anyone's standards.”

“By anyone's standard, but the Vulcans. Well, it's really difficult to put it in human terms. Body and mind mature differently in Vulcans. Their bodies grow up pretty quickly. They _look_ like adults at around twenty-five. Then they barely age at all for over a century. I mean, T'Les was pushing a hundred and fifty and from looking at her you'd have thought she was forty.”

“If you could bottle _that_ secret, you could make billions selling that to women all over the planet,” John chuckled and they both emptied their bottle. 

“Well, their minds – that's an entirely different matter,” Trip continued his explanation while Jon served two new drinks. “Intellectually they're pretty much ready to go at twenty-five, when they come out of schooling. But then it takes about another fifteen years until they develop full discipline and emotional control. Bit like humans between sixteen and twenty – ready for life, but still prone to do stupid things.

Couple of days ago she called me, sitting in the banya half-naked and plundering my beer stash. I knew she would end up pissed out of her skull, so I sent mom over, just to make sure she doesn't end up running out of the front gates. The guards don't really need to see their former head of government stumbling about naked and drunk. After all, she's supposed to return to that job one day.”

“Well, that explains some things she did when T'Pol and I were in the Forge. T'Pau was probably the least emotional Vulcan of the lot, but she sure was reckless. I didn't get the impression she really thought it through before trying to pry Surak's katra from my brain.” Jon said with a chuckle about Trip's recollection. “What's about that half-naked thing? I remember she was in quite a bad shape when you returned from Betazed.”

“Did you know that she actually had a bit of a crush on you for a while after you returned from the Forge?” Trip needled him with a smirk, amused about Jon's almost instantaneous blush. “Anyway, she broke down on Betazed, because there were a hundred of strangers and many of them ogled _those_ bits. All three of us were deemed good lookin' so they put us bang smack in the first row.”

“Ouch!”

“You should have seen some of the guys and girls who stood in the _last_ row,” Trip said an shivered theatrically. “Anyway, both T'Pol and T'Pau took a shining to skinny dipping and naked sun-tanning as long as they are around people they are comfortable with. And I sure ain't complaining. You haven't seen heaven until you've seen T'Pol riding her horse topless.”

“TMI, Trip,” he heard Jon say and they raised their bottles in salute.

“You should think about settling, too, Jon,” the engineer said seriously. 

“I'm forty-six, Trip. And not even mentioning that we are technically at war, it'll be at least a few years until I got the urge to go out there out of my system. I want to go out exploring at least one last time. I'm not going to end my career with a war. And you've seen with Malcolm and Hoshi what happens if you start a relationship aboard the ship.”

“Except that the one you've always remembered all those years doesn't serve in Starfleet and is therefore not subject to the no-frats,” Trip said dryly.

“Ri'anne?”

“Bingo,” Trip exclaimed and raised his bottle. “I didn't even need to say who. You've never given her the chance to go with you, you know.”

“Someone had to cure the mess the Mallurians had made of her people.”

“Don't you think she has done so by now? And if you were burdened with a secret that your entire planet mustn't learn of. Where would you go?”

“I'd become a hermit...”

Trip could almost hear the penny drop in Archer's brain.

“You have probably months of shore leave backlogged by now and I have a rough idea what your bank account looks like, considering we've not been spending any money for years. It only takes a month to Akaali if you charter a warp three transport.”

With satisfaction Trip saw the dark eyes of his former captain light up with hope for the first time in a very long while.

=/\=

Cathryn was cleaning one of the big windows in the empty room that would soon be part of the home for two of her son's friend. Trip's adoptive daughter, who had helped cleaning the large flat over the last two days was working on another. The young Vulcan had changed since the one time she had seen her on the view screen almost three years ago.

Back then her hair was not even reaching her shoulders and had looked as if it had been styled with explosives. Now the mane of her adoptive grand child went down all the way to the small of her back and was perfectly styled. Instead of the heavy robe back then she wore nothing but a pair of ridiculously tight yoga pants and a T-shirt and that would only stay on long enough for the temperature to rise above thirty degrees centigrade.

It was hard to fathom that the sparsely clad Vulcan had been the head of government of the entire planet until a few weeks ago. Instead of deciding the future of her people, she now found herself cleaning up a room that had been unused for a long time and therefore had been appropriately dirty.

“He doesn't like it, you know?” Cathryn half asked, half stated nonchalantly. 

She saw the questioning look on the young woman's face.

“I've been here three times over the last few days and you were always either naked or didn't wear a shirt. Trip's not gonna like that.”

“Father is... apprehensive. I believe it is because I look like an adult female.”

Cathryn snorted  loudly . Now there was an understatement.

“Honey, you look like a _gorgeous_ adult female, and there's nothing more horrifying for a man than to get aroused by looking at his own daughter.”

“Grandmother!” came the scandalized reply.

Cathryn made a waving motion with her hand and they sat down on two boxes, wh ich were the only objects in the other wise empty room. She handed the young Vulcan a bottle of mineral water. 

“T'Pau, honey, you have to keep in mind that Trip is a human. The human brain is hard-wired to react to a naked body. Even we girls get aroused when we see a well-built man. Humans don't have a blood-fever that draws us together to make babies. We woman folk are ready once a month and to make sure that we are well catered for, evolution wired the male brain to become very willing to do so if we show them our body.”

She could see the Vulcan's eyes go wide and if she didn't know better, she would say the young girl was ashamed of herself.

“Our kids all loved skinny dipping. When we went to the beach, you rarely saw them with any clothing. But once our daughter Lizzy started to become a woman, my husband became very uncomfortable with it. He got sort of used to Lizzy's penchant for topless sun-tanning, but whenever she dropped the pants to go into the water he ran off.”

“Father also insists that I wear pants and I'm not allowed to touch him if I'm not fully clothed.”

“What you do when he's at work, doesn't matter, but when he's home make it easier for him, okay?”

“Should I use the banya when he is not at home?”

Cathryn smiled.

“You can still go in there together. Just put a towel over your lap. If he's anything like his father, he's gotten used to seeing you topless, but having his daughter's private parts flashed in his face...”

The face of T'Pau took on a greenish hue.

“Come on, let's get this finished. They will arrive in two days,” she said after seeing the Vulcan's accepting nod.

=/\=

“Evasive maneuver!” Shran shouted, his antennae thrust forward aggressively.

It had been only a matter of time until the Romulans would test the waters again. This time however they had seen them coming and what sounded like a good thing was actually bad news, because it meant that the enemy had removed the cloaking devices. The absence of the experimental devices meant their singular weakness was gone, too. Which was why Shran's little convoy of four  _Kumari_ class cruisers, four frigates and two destroyers was in a heap of trouble. 

Challenger was rocked by incoming fire.

“Shields holding at sixty percent,” the tactical officer reported and returned the favor to their attackers.

In a large fireball one of the attacking ships exploded, taking one of the destroyers with them, which was too close to the disintegrating Romulan ship.

“Go after them!” the Andorian demanded and the pilot changed course to pursue the second attacker, who tried to escape. With a well aimed shot, the tactical officer made sure they wouldn't warp out of the system. Already well 'prepared' by the other ships of Shran's convoy, the Romulan vessel hung in space, venting green plasma from the damaged propulsion system.

“They are dead in the water,” the young man behind the tactical console repeated.

“Finish them!” Shran demanded and another volley of torpedoes wiped the enemy ship out of existance.

“Contact Starfleet Command,” the Captain instructed his comms officer, his antennae now planted flat back against his skull in distress. “Report the loss of the _Churchill_ with all hands and tell them that the enemy is back with a vengeance.”

=/\=

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Trip asked and gently patted the horse's flank. As they had approached the house, the animal had come trotting towards them. A slightly out-of-breath Vulcan chased it. 

“I apologize, Mr. Tucker, she just ran away while I was working with Beryoza,” the Vulcan explained himself.

“Don't fret it, Segal,” the human replied with a smile. “It's not the first time she's done that. I think she has learned to pick up my voice from a distance. And she's not a patient one if I've been away for a while.”

“Well, you can hardly miss _that_ accent, Malcolm needled him. “Even if you are a horse.”

“Very funny, Malcolm,” Trip said, while Vivendi tried to get hold of his duffel's zipper with her lips. T'Pol came to the rescue and handed the keen animal a freshly peeled banana and Trip was instantly demoted to 'second favorite returnee' as the excited animal turned her full attention to the Vulcan. 

“Are they always like that?” Hoshi asked with a smile, gingerly stroking the horse's flank, while Vivendi greedily munched on the offered fruit. 

“Have a banana with you and you're her bestest buddy,” Trip chuckled, observing the interaction between Hoshi and the hoofed pet.

As they continued their walk towards the entrance, Vivendi trotted along sniffing both T'Pol and Hoshi repeatedly in an attempt to find out if any of them was hiding more fruit somewhere.

=/\=

Malcolm didn't know whether to look away or not, when Trip was embraced by the Vulcan waiting for them inside the house. After all the young woman, who had pulled the engineer into a bear hug was none other than the former Vulcan head of government. A slight squeeze of his hand and a smile from Hoshi reassured him that he wasn't intruding on anything. After all the Vulcan would have not initiated the contact if his presence was deemed inappropriate, he reasoned.

“We've not put much more than a bed in your place yet,” the second member of the welcome-committee, Trip's mother, said. “We gathered you wanted to select the interior yourself. The bed can be returned within a week too if you don't like it.”

“As long as it is big enough for the two of us,” Hoshi said with a chuckle.

“I think we'll hit the shop's tomorrow,” Trip said. “Until then we'll just all use the first floor.”

“Are you sure we're not intruding?” Malcolm asked. “We can stay in a Starfleet condo until we're fully equipped...”

Trip threw his head back and laughed. “Malcolm, if that was what we had in mind, we would have dropped you off at San Francisco. Don't be ridiculous. You're both welcome here.”

“Well, maybe you just give that miserable git a beer,” Hoshi offered, laughing. “We ladies are going to check the premises.”

“Now there's a suggestion,” Malcolm quipped and before he knew, T'Pau had thrust a bottle of the drink into his and Trip's hands and walked off with all the other women.”

“Don't ask, just sit down,” Trip said with a chuckle and handed Malcolm the opener.

=/\=

“I can't believe this!” Hoshi exclaimed as they reached the small beach. This was something that normally cost a fortune to own. “How could you afford all that?”

“Acquisition of this estate cost most of our savings,” T'Pol admitted. “But Trip is acquiring constant payments for his publications, now that they are published on allied worlds as well.”

“They must sell _really_ well,” the young linguist noted, looking around. “I can't say how happy I am that you let us live here.”

H oshi looked over and she thought she could see a contemplative face on the Vulcan. 

“I haven't said anything wrong, have I?” she said in a whisper that only T'Pol could hear. 

“Not at all,” T'Pol responded in kind, walking away from the others. Hoshi followed her. 

=/\=

“I understand that pregnancy is not a process without potential troubles, for humans,” she opened, once they were out of earshot from T'Pau and Trip's mother. 

“It has its pitfalls,” Hoshi agreed.

“My pregnancy is – as Trip would call it – 'a crap shoot'. We have no data or prior examples to rely on. Which is why we invited Phlox to take up residence here. Our invitation was not entirely unselfish. Especially for me, the presence of a fellow trusted female is a most welcome thought. As the process will also put a strain on my husband, I hope that the presence of his best friend will help him as well.”

“T'Pol, impending fatherhood is not a strain on a human, it's something wonderful,” Hoshi said.”I haven't seen Malcolm this happy in all the years we've been out there. I mean, has _anyone, ever_ seen Malcolm happy?”

“I would not remember an instance,” T'Pol noted dryly, causing the young human to laugh softly. She did turn serious again quickly. ”If you permit such intimate question. Did your own pregnancy cause a reduction in... intimate contact?”

“Are you kidding?” Hoshi said with a laugh. “We've been at it...”

T'Pol noticed how the young human forced herself to not finish the sentence. As always, Hoshi seemed to sense if something was amiss.

“There are problems, aren't there?” Hoshi asked and the Vulcan could see a hint of concern on the other woman's face.

“There are,” she admitted and sat down on the sand of the beach. Vivendi, who had trotted along still sniffed their hands for some hidden fruit, but T'Pol dismissed the clueless animal with an annoyed hiss, regretting the action immediately when she saw the sad look of Hoshi, who commiserated with the rapidly retreating horse.

=/\=

“T'Pol, that's not like you. What's wrong?” Hoshi asked after seeing that the scared horse was now consoled by T'Pau. A short meeting of glances had told her that the second Vulcan on the premises had understood that something was wrong. She could see T'Pau and Trip's mother retreat back to the house with Vivendi in tow.

“I am incompatible to my mate,” T'Pol declared and Hoshi thought it sounded like T'Pol was putting herself on trial.

“Bullshit,” Hoshi swore, knowing that her rude exclamation would capture the Vulcan's full attention. “T'Pol, listen to yourself. Trip loves you. He just spent two weeks in a coma for your sake. Sure, you guys aren't having an easy time, but how can you say you're incompatible? The two of you are a perfect match if I ever saw one!”

“We are unable to mate properly,” T'Pol said.

Hoshi noticed the quivering in the Vulcan's voice. From the studies to translate the new Kir'Shara, she knew that T'Pol had been afflicted by the _plak-tow_ and was prone to lapses in her emotional control for several more weeks, but even under that condition, the obvious annoyance of T'Pol was surprising, if not even unsettling.

“T'Pol, there are other methods, you know,” she ventured carefully. She could guess that T'Pol's problem was connected to size. She had never seen Trip naked, but spent enough time in decon with him and that blue Starfleet underwear was not exactly good at hiding that _Enterprise_ 's former Chief Engineer had been provided by nature like a gas pump.

“We tried, but Vulcan physiology makes it a too violent act,” T'Pol spat.

“Rear entrance?” Hoshi gasped, realizing that T'Pol had tried a lot more than she had thought.

The Vulcan nodded.

“T'Pol, for a human male making love is more than just sticking his thing somewhere,” she explained. “I'm not going to sugar coat it. Trip took a lot of shit from you just for the hope of being with you. Do you really think he's going to abandon you, because your sex is limited for a year?”

“It's me!” T'Pol replied hotly and Hoshi was taken aback by the ferocity of T'Pol's emotion. “I am the one with the increased libido. And he will be required to sate my desires with little I can offer in return!”

Hoshi let herself fall on her back, laughing. She saw the hurt look on T'Pol's face, but couldn't stop herself. When she had recovered, she sat up again and took T'Pol's hands.

“T'Pol, let me tell you a secret about human males. The only thing they care about during... well _IT_... is that their lady has a great time. Trip will be happy just by making you enjoy it. And look at you, you sure have ways to pleasure him.”

“We already practiced oral and mammal stimulation,” the Vulcan reported bluntly. Hoshi shook her head.

“T'Pol. Do you really think that'll ever get old for him? If we were to chuck the shirt now, our men would be happy as a clam at high tide, just by looking at our 'mammary features'. You are making up a problem where there is none. Mark my words. Trip is going to find a way to make those 10 months enjoyable for both of you.”

“Should we 'chuck' the shirt to test your theory?” the Vulcan asked dryly.

“Deal! I wanna see Malcolm sputter,” Hoshi said with a laugh and both bared their chests before starting to walk back to the house.


	7. A Day In The Life...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No space battles here, just an utterly domestic and fluffy chapter

Trip exchanged a silent nod with Segal when the Vulcan took his leave, while he and Malcolm made themselves comfortable on the porch. Trip had commandeered the canopy swing, knowing he would undoubtedly be joined by his wife later on. T'Pol liked the swing, but would of course never admit that.

Malcolm was sitting on one of the comfy deck chairs and Trip couldn't help but notice that even now Malcolm didn't look like relaxing much.

“So, how much of those do you need to drink until you stop looking constipated, Malcolm?” Trip needled him, raising his bottle.

“Very funny, Trip,” the Brit returned. “You know I'm not the guy to easily settle into things and here I am, living in the same house with two of my former superior officers and the former Vulcan head of government.”

“You make it sound as if that's unusual,” Trip quipped and took a swig of his refreshment.

“Nah, all my friends have adopted a former First Minister from another planet and live in a mansion the size of Belgium,” Malcolm replied dryly. “Hell, the fact that I have friends in the first place is a minor miracle to begin with.”

“Frankly, all you need to do is opening up,” Trip answered sincerely. “Even T'Pol thinks that it's time to stop being so distant after seven years.”

He smiled, when he saw the slightly disbelieving look on the Brits face.

“Don't expect her to hug you,” Trip clarified and exchanged the empty bottles for new ones. “But it was her idea to offer you the upstairs apartment. If you had opened up a bit more and a bit sooner, T'Pol and you could have been good friends by now. She quite likes your gung-ho attitude.”

The engineer couldn't help but grin about the incredulous look he received in return

“Don’t look so surprised,” Trip demanded. “You have to keep in mind that Vulcans descended from a warrior race. And besides, you are the one human who comes closest to the Vulcan ideal of mastering their emotions. Everything in your life is ordered, structured, yet your are a fierce warrior if necessary. That’s very attractive to a Vulcan.”

Trip had to stop himself from laughing as Malcolm nearly spat out his beer.

“Bloody Norah, mate, are you trying to tell me that T’Pol has a crush on me?”

“No she hasn’t,” Trip said, once composure had been regained. “But Vulcans aren’t the types to open up for friendships much. Besides me her only real friend is Hoshi. You could have been another, as you are an honorary Vulcan in her eyes anyway, but you keep your distance to anyone but me. For a Vulcan that’s like a huge ‘keep out’ sign. If you start to become more approachable. you’ll soon notice that T’Pol will open up, too.”

“You make it sound as if you would actually want that,” Malcolm wondered aloud.

“’Course I do. You’re having a baby with my wife’s best friend and I tend to think you are the best friend I have. For T’Pol it’s patently illogical to keep a distance from her best friend’s chosen. Yet so far she’s done so, because your behavior matches that of a Vulcan, who wants to be left alone.”

Trip smiled about Malcolm’s still incredulous look. It was a lot to dump on poor Malcolm, but if this arrangement of living in the same house was to be successful, Malcolm needed to get the stick out of his ass and nothing was more effective than just yanking it out. He continued his narrative.

“And besides, as secluded as this place is, most of Earth is not safe for a Vulcan, especially one pregnant with a half-human child. There are worse things than knowing that one of her acquaintances is an accomplished security officer and one hell of a fighter, you know.”

=/\=

Malcolm was sitting on his chair looking out over the vast estate that belonged to Trip and T’Pol’s mansion. Mrs. Tucker and T’Pau – he still had problems adjusting to the fact that she was no longer a powerful leader and was basically a rebellious teenager here – had finally delivered the horse back to its stable and had taken their leave. Apparently the young Vulcan would spend the week days with Trip’s parents as it was more convenient to travel from their place to her schooling.

He was just about to finish this thought when – with an almighty cough – the latest swig of beer was ejected through his nose. Hysterical laughter from Trip accompanied his desperate attempt to contain the coughing.

Hoshi and T’Pol were walking towards them and they were wearing their shirts – in their hands – affording them a glorious view of two drop-dead gorgeous, topless women. He could tell T’Pol was a bit apprehensive, being seen less than completely clothed by anyone but her husband, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the stunt was deliberate. He had no clue what the possible reason could be, but one did not ‘accidentally’ forget to put a shirt on, much less when one’s ears had pointed ends.

As the two of them reached the porch, he was trying to think of a casual quip to greet them with, but the words didn’t come to him. All he could do was stare dumbfounded at the spectacle and try not to dribble.

=/\=

“You shocked the daylights out of poor Malcolm,” Trip mentioned as T’Pol’s head was resting on his shoulder.

They were sitting on the swing, gently moving back and forth. Hoshi, widely grinning upon their arrival, had quickly taken Malcolm with her before he would be ‘too drunk to perform’, leaving them alone to look at the sunset.

“He appeared more fascinated by Hoshi,” T’Pol replied, seemingly dryly, but he could sense her immense amusement through the bond. But he also felt an element of insecurity. It was only to be expected after the turbulent weeks behind them. T’Pol wasn’t the type to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and if she tried, she was prone to engage in not really well thought-through knee-jerk reactions.

“It was your idea, wasn’t it?” he asked, his voice firm enough to let her know that this wasn’t their usual teasing. “You were scared witless knowing that Malcolm would be seeing your stuff, yet you went ahead with it. What is it?”

He could see her trademark eye-roll that she employed whenever he saw right through her. The lengthy pause told him this wouldn’t be an easy talk.

“The idea was Hoshi’s, but I think she she suggested it in jest. Her theory, however, was too important not to test out, so I suggested putting it in practice.”

Trip jumped up from the swing causing the construction to swing with much more force than the gentle movement they had induced so far. T’Pol nearly fell over when the shoulder she was resting on was removed.

“T’Pol, don’t think I’m an idiot. I might be human and maybe as as far as brain capacity goes, we are indeed inferior to Vulcans, but when I add one and one, I get something other than eleven. This is you thinking again that just because we can’t have sex right now I’m gonna turn my back on you, isn’t it? In comes Hoshi and tells you ‘Just show him your tits’. That was the plan wasn’t it?”

If he wasn’t so upset about the situation, Trip would have laughed about T’Pol’s crumbling like a cheap suit, but he also saw that she was genuinely hurt. His first reflex was to swallow down his irritation and reassure her, but he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t understand, why, after all they had gone through, she still was unsure of his love.

“Yes, Hoshi suggested this cause of action. She suggested that something as simple as affording you a look at my unclothed physique would at least partially offset the involuntary lack of physical intimacy.”

He sank onto the chair formerly occupied by Malcolm and looked at her.

“T’Pol. In one regard Hoshi was right. Seeing you naked or half-naked will always be pleasing for me, but what fascination is it going to hold if I know you are uncomfortable with it? And as far as our limited options for sex go – to put it bluntly – have you ever considered that seeing this pregnancy succeed might be more important to me than fucking your brains out every day?”

He knew his crude wording hurt her, but he couldn’t be bothered to wrap the verbal fist in a velvet glove right now. Sometimes T’Pol needed the blunt approach to see reason.

“Husband, it is I, who is the demanding party,” she pleaded and Trip could see that she tried to shift the blame some more on herself. “I know that you will readily submit to performing repetitive techniques to pleasure me, but I am unable to return this attention. I do not wish to take advantage of you.”

“Sometimes you are so clueless, T’Pol, it’s almost comical,” he said softly, shaking his head. “Who of us is carrying the burden of this pregnancy? You will carry the little one inside you for close to a year. You’ll give birth under pain. And you worry that I might find my sex life lacking in variety? How shallow do you think I am? I understand what the hormone treatment does to your system and trust me, Phlox has prepared me for _everything_. You’ll soon notice that I’m far more prepared for the situation than you’re ready to give me credit for. T’Pol, our intimate life is okay as it is. I wish you’d just believe that.

Yes, I overreacted back on Betazed, but I’ve come to understand what happened. Trust me, there’s worse things than being offered the hottest piece of ass in the galaxy, even if it gets a bit rowdy in the process. But stop assuming to know what I think. We have a bond – use it. And if that isn’t enough, there’s those things called ‘words’. Talk to me, okay?”

T’Pol looked at him with what he mentally referred to the ‘Vulcan deer-in-headlights look’. He had seen it first when John had staged the biggest comeback since Lazarus coming back from the Space-Nazis after the Expanse mission.

“I did not mean to offend you husband,” she said meekly.

“But you did, T’Pol,” Trip replied, trying too find a balance between his still simmering irritation and trying to reassure her. “I know Hoshi meant well and for what it was worth, it was one hell of a show, but in the end you managed nothing else but inconveniencing Malcolm and making yourself uncomfortable.”

“I am sorry, husband,” she replied more meekly than he liked. He knew he had pushed her hard, too hard in fact. With T’Pol it was always a lottery. She sometimes needed a straight – even blunt – approach, but a single sentence could push it too far and hurt her.

“Stop apologizing, T’Pol,” he said. “At least Malcolm now knows what awaits him living here, because knowing you and T’Pau, as soon as the temperature is above 30 centigrade your shirts will go AWOL. But as far as our intimate life is concerned, you’ll have to talk to _me_ , not Hoshi, okay? It is me you’re married to and if you feel insecure, it is _my_ job to reassure you, got it?”

“Yes husband,” she agreed still too meekly for his liking, so he went a step further.

“Well, you’ve always been more accepting of a practical demonstration as opposed to taking my word for it. So, get your half-naked body into bed and make it a completely naked one,” he ordered with mock-seriousness. “Hubby is going to show you some ‘techniques’.”

He nearly laughed out loud at the speed at which T’Pol grabbed his hand and dragged him inside.

=/\=

When T’Pol woke up in the morning she immediately felt that familiar buzzing of complete intimate satiety that resulted from her husband’s ‘practical demonstration’. Since they could hardly be called the galaxy’s least active pair of mates as far as physical intimacy was concerned, it was all the more surprising that her beloved was still able to come up with techniques they had not tried yet. And if the peculiar mischief she had felt in the bond last night was any indication, her husband had not revealed his plans entirely yet. There seemed to be a surprise, which was yet to be revealed.

As hard as she tried to suppress it, it would take some extra-meditation to deal with the guilt she felt for having made unfounded assumptions about his thinking – again. Thankfully he was not privy to some of the discussions she had had with Phlox while quarantined on Betazed. He would have been very badly hurt knowing some of the conclusions she had jumped to about what could possibly have happened when he was under the influence of her unchecked emotions. She decided to pay more attention to not repeat these mistakes.

Since some of the new techniques had been rather time consuming, their intimate activity had lasted long into the night and he was still sleeping very soundly. Not wanting to disrupt his sleep she carefully extracted herself from his embrace. She collected a pair of underpants from the wardrobe, put them on and covered herself with her silken bathrobe.

=/\=

“G-good morning,” Malcolm stuttered, somewhat uneasily returning T’Pol’s greeting. He had been sitting on the porch for quite some time already, watching the sunrise. “If you want me to leave...”

“Why would I want you to leave, Malcolm? It would be illogical, considering that we invited you to live here.”

It took him a moment to get used to the fact that she had addressed him by his first name. Coming from T’Pol that was actually quite a step.

“It would, if anything, be me, who should apologize for the inconvenience Hoshi and I caused you last night.”

“No need to,” he placated her. “Trip had warned me beforehand that certain liberties are taken with the dress code in the summer. I was merely taken by surprise when it actually happened. Don’t let me influence how you live in your own house. And if seeing two beautiful women without a shirt is the worst that’s going to happen to me, I’ll gladly take the punt.”

He couldn’t help but smile when the Vulcan answered his explanation with a nod and a very highly raised eyebrow before walking back into the house. Actually, he couldn’t believe he had said that out loud. It took a bit of adjustment to get used to the fact that T’Pol spoke so openly with him about intimate matters or easily appeared before him in only a bathrobe. The very fact that she had been the one to come up with the suggestion of offering them to live here was testament to the fact that she was trying to put the time as ‘fellow officers’ in the past.

As a Vulcan she would of course go about it methodically, even though she had put the cart before the horse a bit with the little stunt the girls had pulled the night before. As far as he knew T’Pol, and together with what Trip had let him know about his life as a husband to a Vulcan, there were two possible scenario’s.

Number one – his declaration of not being ‘too inconvenienced’ by encountering the female contingent of this estate in partial state of undress could have been the signal for her to leave the bathrobe inside or – the second scenario – she would start a conversation about more personal matters. The latter option was actually quite probable as both Hoshi and Trip were no morning people and would certainly not wake up before two or three hours from now.

When she came back, she was still wearing the robe, much to his relief. But the fact that she came out with two cups and a heated pitcher with tea made it clear that the ‘personal conversation’ seemed to be on the menu. Well, Trip had told him this would happen and apparently the Vulcan did not subscribe to the concept of procrastination.

He accepted the cup with a grateful nod and held it up while she poured the tea. He could smell it was camomile, according to Trip, her favorite flavor.

“May I ask a personal question, in regards to the events of yesterday evening?” came the predictable introductory question.

“Sure,” he replied with more conviction than than he felt. Why couldn’t she talk about their respective childhoods instead? Would he be talking to a human he would have tried to smile reassuringly, but thankfully such thing wasn’t necessary with a Vulcan. Malcolm wasn’t sure he could have pulled that off convincingly enough.

“Were you truly not inconvenienced by our ‘display’ yesterday?” she asked and he could hear an unexpected undercurrent of insecurity.

He carefully measured his response. He wasn’t the best at reading other people’s emotions – he wasn’t even good at reading his own, truth be told, but he could sense that, for whatever reason, the answer was sort of important.

“Well, to tell the truth I never expected something like that from a Vulcan, considering that telling one’s age is considered intimate on your home world, but I would suspect that it is sort of a side-effect of your trip to that Betazoid wedding of Travis.”

“The wedding is not an experience that either T’Pau or I care to repeat,” she explained. “But during the preparation, we realized that bathing in the nude is an unexpectedly agreeable experience and that wearing only partial clothing in a strictly private setting is rather... ‘pleasurable’.”

Now he couldn’t help smiling. T’Pol admitting to liking something sounded like she was pleading guilty to having stolen from the cookie jar. This however was a good opportunity to return the favor of ‘opening up’.

“Well, that particular discovery is not exactly exclusive to Vulcans,” he assured her. “It was, I think in the summer of thirty-eight. I was sixteen and out on a date with my first girlfriend. It was a scorching hot day and she suggested going for a swim in a nearby river. I told her that I hadn’t brought any swimming trunks and she said that neither had she. I was terrified, but the opportunity of seeing her in the buff was too good a chance to pass up.”

He could feel the blush creep up his cheeks about this admission, which he had shared with nobody but Hoshi so far.

“And you found out that it was surprisingly agreeable, both her appearance and the bath,” the Vulcan finished the sentence for him with a raised eyebrow that he thought could just as well represent a giggle.

“Exactly,” he said, feeling that the blush was still stubbornly clinging to his cheeks.

“So we have that particular discovery in common,” T’Pol stated the obvious.

“Although, to be honest, I have no idea how to react when T’Pau walks about without a shirt. I have barely adapted to the fact that she isn’t the First Minister anymore,” he admitted.

“I doubt this problem will present itself in the near future,” she answered, sipping her tea. “T’Pau does not have the experience of having served with you for years. It will be a long time until she will be comfortable enough to be seen by anyone but Trip and I.”

“Is that why she spends the week at Trip’s folks?” he asked, glad that the stubborn blush had finally gone. “We wouldn’t want to inconvenience her.”

“Her residence with Trip’s parents has practical reasons. T’Pau has never received formal schooling. She is doing that now and travel arrangements are easier to make from the residence of Charles and Cathryn. She will spend the weekends here. She would miss the horses if she was away from them for too long.”

“What is it with Vulcans and horses?” Malcolm asked and surprised himself by smiling. “The brown one certainly preferred you over Trip last night.”

“Vivendi is an opportunist,” she replied, raising that eyebrow again. Malcolm was convinced by now that it was T’Pol’s idea of showing amusement. “I offered her a fruit, Trip did not. So her allegiance was easily decided.”

“But you obviously like horses, too. Vulcans are not known to let too many creatures, human or not, into their personal space. Some years ago, only Trip was allowed to get so close to you without having to fear rough consequences.”

“Were we that obvious?” T’Pol asked, obviously not referring to the animal.

“To anyone who bothered to look, yes,” Malcolm acknowledged. “In my capacity as the security officer it was my job to keep an eye on people and Hoshi is fascinated by deciphering body language, so the two of us probably knew it about two years before you and Trip did.”

She raised an eyebrow and since it was different from the ‘funny configuration’, he guessed from the context that it was probably meant to display curiosity or inquisitiveness.

“The first time I really noticed it was during the battle with those Klingons on that Deuterium colony in our second year. The place was scorching hot, none of us smelled like roses and you had not had the chance to get your nasal numbing agent from Phlox. You gave all of us a wide berth – except for Trip. He was the only one, who could come anywhere near you.”

“His smell did indeed not inconvenience me, much to my confusion at the time.”

“Well, of course the aftermath of the _Seleya_ gave it away,” Malcolm said, surprised how easily a smile came to him by now.

“I do not understand.”

“Well, you were pretty much out of it from the Trellium exposure,” Malcolm recalled. “You clawed and spat at everyone, even Phlox. It was left to Trip to administer hyposprays. He was the only one you let anywhere near you. In fact as soon as he touched you, you calmed down and let him do whatever Phlox needed.”

He could see a greenish tinge creep up her cheeks and he decided that if she was going to open up, this was a good moment to ask a question he had harbored for years.

“T’Pol, this is a very personal question. When did you shake that Trellium habit you developed afterwards.”

For the first time since he knew her, he heard T’Pol gasp.

“You knew.”

“Yes, I knew,” Malcolm admitted. “I wouldn’t be much of a security officer if I had missed that.”

“But you did not intervene.”

“No. I probably should have, but at the time I was caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand you started interacting with the crew better, on the other hand you were obviously under the influence of mind-altering drugs. In a normal setting I would have intervened, but the situation at the time was too volatile to declare a superior officer unfit for duty.”

T’Pol acknowledged his explanation with a nod.

“To answer your question,” he heard her explain. “After the Reptilian attack before our meeting with Degra, I was nearly killed retrieving Trellium from the damaged cargo bay. After that I sought and received help from Phlox.”

Malcolm nodded his acceptance.

“Since I was still under the influence of Trellium during the battle at Azati Prime; am I to blame for the victims?”

Malcolm had not expected her to ask about it, but it was a question he had pondered himself.

“I’m not going to lie, T’Pol; I pondered that question myself and if you were to blame for them, I think I would have reported your addiction. But ultimately I think you are not to blame. I ran simulations with Captain Archer in command and myself in command. That’s the people I have enough data on. Both Archer and I would have lost the ship with all hands. All things considered, what you did, you did to yourself and you still performed better than any of us would have done. But I’m certainly glad you were able to overcome it.”

He could see her contemplate his explanation.

“It is not something I am proud of.”

“Of course not,” Malcolm said. “But you are as fallible as all of us. I’ve done enough stupid things in my life. Hoshi has a few silly things in her past, as has Trip. Had your addiction seriously interfered with ship operations, I wouldn’t have hesitated to step in, but it was manageable.”

“I am gratified that you did not end my career.”

“I merely applied the same standards to you that I afforded all other crew members. We rotated out fifteen crew members after the Xindi mission, who had become alcoholics or addicted to medication. None of us came out of that one unscathed.”

“Surely not,” she agreed and the talk ended in a long silence with both of them looking at the rising sun in quite contemplation.

=/\=

“Let me guess, my wife had a lengthy talk with you,” Trip said, giving Malcolm a pat on his back.

“How do you know?”

“Well, both you and T’Pol are early risers and T’Pol would not see much logic in wasting time showing you that she was prepared to bridge the distance,” he said, pouring himself a coffee.

“I think I learned more about her in one morning than I did in years on the ship,” Malcolm admitted. “And if anything, I’m more convinced than ever that the two of you are a perfect match.”

“How come?” Trip asked, his curiosity peaked.

“Well, trying to read T’Pol’s emotions is an exercise in futility unless you’re you or Hoshi, but whenever she talks of you, even I can see her expression softening. It’s frankly, quite amazing.”

“Well, took us a while though,” Trip said with a chuckle.

“And it worked out so well, you went right ahead and adopted the Vulcan head of government,” Malcolm needled him, sipping his coffee.

“Strictly speaking, it was T’Pau who adopted _us_ ,” Trip replied, smiling about the memory. “But truth be told, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“So much is obvious,” the Brit replied. “Only you could manage to charm not one, but two Vulcans.”

“I didn’t _charm_ T’Pau,” Trip protested.

Why did so many people have problems accepting the relationship. Granted, she didn’t look like one would expect a daughter of his to look like. For the human eye there was no way to tell that T’Pol was twice the age of the former First Minister. They both looked like grown and very gorgeous women. He would probably have to live with the fact that most of his fellow humans would never get their head around that.

“Well you must have convinced her somehow,” Malcolm said, dragging him out of his thoughts. “I’ve spoken to Captain Archer. She didn’t think much of humans, yet she chose to adopt you as her father. You have to admit that there are some pieces missing in _that_ puzzle.”

“I think it was more likely curiosity,” Trip said. “Remember that just a short time before that V’Lon had tried to mess up both T’Pol and me in public, seemingly confirming all the preconceptions that Vulcans had about us at the time. And suddenly I turn up in the High Council and out-Vulcan the guy.”

“Not to forget that you also proposed marriage in the process,” Hoshi added with a chuckle as she came out of the house with a cup of tea. Her hair was a right mess and, like T’Pol, her whole attire amounted to a bathrobe. She went by, giving him a peck on the cheek before settling in Malcolm’s lap.

“And I thought _I_ wasn’t a morning person,” Trip noted with a chuckle when he saw Hoshi’s messed up state. She looked as if she had tried hairdressing with a firecracker. Hoshi returned his quip by sticking out her tongue and snuggled a little closer to Malcolm.

=/\=

The banya on the beach was little more than a wooden shack, but it sure needed maintenance, Trip thought as he welded some cracks that had developed in the metal casing of the oven due to the repeated heating and cooling. Considering it was the last weekend before finally returning to full-time duty he would just as well have liked to slack off, but owning a house this size meant there was always some maintenance job or other that had to be done.

And it certainly beat Malcolm and Hoshi’s program. His two friends had left at lunch time to visit her parents in Japan. Knowing that her ancestors were less than thrilled that Hoshi had chosen a non-Japanese, it would certainly be a rather awkward weekend for his introverted pal, but Hoshi had insisted on this courtesy visit.

“Didn’t I ask you to do that _before_ we came back?” he mock-admonished her, when he saw T’Pau put new cans of beer into the fridge. The soft snorting from outside told him that she had traveled by horse instead of using the hover vehicle.

“I hope my tardiness has not inconvenienced you, father,” she demurred with as little seriousness as his ‘admonishment’. Dutifully, she brought him one of the cans and hugged him close.

“How’s school going?”

“I have little problems with the studies,” she explained. “However there are certain moments of awkwardness, considering that I am more than twice as old as my fellow students and most of them know who I am.”

“Still calling you minister, huh?”

“Yes, especially the teachers.”

“Just go with it hon, it’ll get better,” he explained, opening the beverage. “Happened to me every time a new fresh-faced ensign for engineering came aboard. ‘Oh my gawd it’s Commander Tucker!’ They’ll calm down eventually.”

“I hope your assessment is correct,” she replied.

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” he asked, assuming that the two Vulcans in his house had made plans already.

“There are no specific plans. Hoping that the repairs you are doing do not preclude later use of the facility? And I was hoping you would have time for... meditation.”

He couldn’t help, but smile. He very well knew that ‘meditation’ meant lying on the beach with her head resting on his chest, listening to his heart-beat. Granted, she really _did_ meditate, but he knew all too well that the physical closeness was as important as the meditation. It looked like dinner was going to be a beach picnic again.

Knowing T’Pol, she probably had prepared for the occasion already.   


End file.
